Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a disease state characterized by airflow that is not fully reversible. Besides problems in physiological functioning, the patient also can experience symptoms, functional impairment and a diminished quality of life (see Vercoulen et al., 2008). Problems in the three latter domains of health status are hardly recognized in usual care, and remain untreated until escalated. This is mainly caused by two phenomena: doctor delay and patient delay. Doctor delay: the physician does not directly identify symptoms, functional impairment, and problems in quality of life. Patient delay: the patient does not report problems in these health status domains.
What is necessary is a screening instrument that can be used in routine care and identifies patients with problems in the four domains of health status. If clinically relevant problems exists, and additional treatment is recommended, an intervention by the pulmonary nurse is indicated. This intervention is directed at increasing awareness of existing problems and motivating the patient for additional treatment. By means of the screening and intervention, problems in health status are detected and treated early, before escalation. Treatment is patient-tailored, based on the existing problems in the four domains of health status, eventually leading to an improved health status.
A randomized controlled trial is conducted to test the hypothesis described above. Based on the independent clinical interpretation of the PatientProfileChart (see Peters et al., 2009) by three professionals, patients are assigned to one of the following groups: 1. Patients with no clinically relevant problems in health status (group I), and 2. Patients with clinically relevant problems in health status (group II/III). Patients with clinically relevant problems in health status are randomized to a control group (group II: usual care as delivered by the outpatient clinic) and the experimental group (group III: intervention conducted by a pulmonary nurse, directed at increasing awareness of problems in health status, increasing motivation to engage in additional treatment, and improving health status).
