Perceptions Across Ethnicities to Develop an Adapted Intervention for Breathlessness

An individual's experience of their breathlessness is influenced by multiple factors including their medical condition, psychology, sociological and situational circumstances which will include ethnicity. There is currently a lack of evidence exploring the impact of ethnicity in the experience and presentation of breathlessness. The non-medical management of breathlessness in respiratory diseases includes pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). PR is a highly evidenced exercise-based intervention to help manage breathlessness, improving health-related quality of life and improving survival. Recent audits in England and Wales showed 89% of patients attending PR were recorded as having a White British ethnicity which is in contrast to national ethnicity demographics. This may be because the cultural acceptability of PR components are not fully considered. Therefore, this study will explore how individuals with cardiorespiratory disease from different ethnicities from the Leicestershire population experience and manage their breathlessness through art workshops, focus groups and interviews. Informed by these results, the study team will work with individuals from under-represented ethnicities and key stakeholders to co-design adaptations of PR that may improve the management of breathlessness in underrepresented ethnicities that do not attend conventional PR programmes. The study is funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of the Leicestershire Health Inequalities Improvement Programme at the University of Leiceste