Adherence to pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients: A systematic review of measurement tools

Adherence is an important factor contributing to the effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, there appears to be a lack of reliable and validated measures to assess adherence in PR.

The purpose of this study was to systematically review and analyze existing PR adherence assessment tools, describe their application effects in different contexts, and explore the scientific validity and applicability of each assessment method.

MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science and other data sources were searched for target articles. To ensure all pertinent papers were included, reference lists from articles that met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. A combination of EndNote 21 software and manual screening of the literature was used for quality assessment, employing the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist. Both researchers conducted the entire process independently, without interfering with each other.

Three studies were included, reporting three tools in three different countries. The quality and validity of these three articles are high. Two of the tools were developed specifically for the COPD population, one tool was developed initially for athlete participant but used to assess the adherence of PR in patients with COPD.

The results show a gap in the literature for well-developed tools that capture adherence for PR of patients with COPD.