The effect of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation on self-efficacy in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

To investigate the effect of pulmonary rehabilitation on the self-efficacy of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The randomised case-control trial was conducted from December 2010 to February 2011 at Masih-Daneshvari Hospital, Tehran, Iran, in an outpatient clinic and comprised patients with mild to moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The patients were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The pulmonary rehabilitation programme for the experimental group consisted of education about the disease, diet therapy, stress reduction methods, effective cough, breathing exercises, and muscle stretching exercises. The patients were encouraged to practise the programme at home three times per week for 7 weeks. They were followed up through weekly telephone contacts. The control group received only routine visits and weekly telephone follow-up. Data were gathered using the Persian version of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease self-efficacy scale, which was filled out at baseline and 7 weeks post-intervention. SPSS 16 was used for statistical analysis.

Of the 66 patients in the study, 34(51.5%) were in cases and 32(48.5%) were controls. The overall mean age was 56.65±8.83 years and 47(71.2%) were males. There was a significant difference between the two groups in total score of self-efficacy (p<0.001) and so was the case with all subscales of self-efficacy (p<0.001).

Pulmonary rehabilitation programme can be used by nurses during discharge planning for patients in order to improve all subscales of self-efficacy of those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.