[The Patient Questionnaire "Monitoring of Exacerbation Probability (MEP)"]

Exacerbations determine the disease process in COPD often decisively, whereas their detection and documentation has not been established satisfactory yet. For this purpose, a simple short Patient Questionnaire with a maximum of five positive answers was developed and evaluated. Values of 2 or more positive responses amplify the signal for an exacerbation, while with the presence of only 1 positive response a potential, but not a likely exacerbation must be considered. The MEP is well suited for a continuous documentation in computer-based administration systems.