A brief patient-directed education program delivered at the time of hospitalization for an acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) improved disease-specific knowledge, according to results of a pilot randomized trial.
Patients who participated in education sessions had a significant improvement in their scores on the Bristol COPD Knowledge Questionnaire (BCKQ), compared with control patients who received no education, study investigators reported in the journal Chest.
“Early education may be a bridge to more active approaches and could provide an important contribution to self-management interventions post-AECOPD,” wrote first author Tania Janaudis-Ferreira, PhD, of the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montreal, and her co-authors.
In the study, patients admitted to a community hospital with an AECOPD were randomized to standard care plus brief education or standard care alone. The education consisted of two 30-minute sessions delivered by a physiotherapist, either in the hospital or at home up to 2 weeks after the admission.
Before and after the intervention period, participant knowledge was measured using both the BCKQ and the Lung Information Needs Questionnaire (LINQ).
A total of 31 patients participated, including 15 in the intervention group and 16 in the control group, although 3 patients in the control group did not complete the follow-up testing, investigators said in their report.
The mean change in BCKQ was 8 points for the educational intervention group, and 3.4 for the control group (P = 0.02). That result was in keeping with findings of a previous randomized study noting an 8.3-point change in BCKQ scores for COPD patients who received education in the primary care setting, Dr. Janaudis-Ferreira and co-authors said.