Multicentre comparison of self-management in patients with COPD

In patients with COPD, self-management plays an important role in disease management. Recently, self-management programmes have expanded patient education practices to include a variety of disease management techniques. We hypothesised that COPD patients have insufficient and/or different self-management needs according to institution. We compared information needs of patients between specialised clinics in Canada (SCC) and Japan and a hospital outpatient clinic in Japan (HCJ), all employing different self-management interventions.  This cross-sectional study evaluated patients' information needs for disease management using the Lung Information Needs Questionnaire (LINQ). Furthermore, we assessed pulmonary function tests, modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnoea scale and frequencies of hospitalisations and emergency visits.  The total number of patients was 183. Those attending SCC were younger (p=0.047), with lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s % predicted (p<0.0001), and scored higher on the mMRC dyspnoea scale. Total LINQ scores showed differences between institutions (p<0.0001). There was no difference for the smoking domain; however, SCC recorded significantly lower information needs for all other domains (p<0.02). No significant difference in emergency visits was seen between institutions, but HCJ recorded the highest rate of emergency visits, while SCC had significantly higher rates of hospitalisation (p=0.004). Differences were seen for frequency and duration of education between institutions.  These results highlight the differences in information needs by institution and the importance of assessing individual needs. We believe, despite representing only one aspect of self-management, our findings reflect real-world circumstances, adding to the argument that self-management education should be structured, but flexible, to meet the changing needs of COPD patients.