Quality of life assessment after patient education in a randomized controlled study on asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The effect of patient education in patients with asthma and Chronic Obstruc tive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is not previously investigated using the St. George's Respiratory Questionnair e (SGRQ). We randomly allocated at our out-patient clinic 78 asthmatics and 62 patients with COPD to either a control or an intervention group. Interv ention consisted of two 2-h group sessions and one to two individual sessio ns each by a nurse and a physiotherapist, A self-management plan was develo ped, Baseline quality of life assessment showed comparable scores independe nt of treatment groups among asthmatics and patients with COPD, but statist ically significantly better scores (p < 0.05) for the educated asthma group after 12 mo compared with the control group. This aligned with the 12-mo S GRQ assessment, which revealed better symptoms, activity, impact, and total scores by 11 (p < 0.02), 15 (p < 0.01), 19 (p < 0.001), and 16 (p < 0.001) units, respectively, Patient education among asthmatics increased the FEV, by a mean value of 6.1% (SD, 12) compared with the control group (p < 0.05 ), Education among patients with COPD did not indicate a significant increa se in HRQoL as measured by the SGRQ or increased FEV1. We conclude that pat ient education increased HRQoL and FEV1 among asthmatics, but not among pat ients with COPD.