Self‐management interventions including action plans for exacerbations versus usual care in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Citation: Lenferink A, Brusse‐Keizer M, van der Valk PD, et al. Self‐management interventions including action plans for exacerbations versus usual care in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2017;(8):CD011682
What is this? Patients with respiratory conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), may be at higher risk of complications of COVID-19 infection. Existing research on interventions to improve self-management may provide useful information for patients, practitioners and policy makers.
In this Cochrane review, the authors searched for randomized trials that compared COPD self-management interventions that included a written action plan for acute exacerbations versus usual care. They did not restrict their searches by language of publication and did the search in May 2016. They included 21 individual randomized trials and one cluster randomized trial (total: 3854 participants). They also identified an additional 2 ongoing studies and 12 articles that are awaiting assessment.
What works: Patients allocated to self-management interventions with action plans for exacerbations had better health-related quality of life than those allocated to usual care, particularly those whose interventions included a smoking cessation programme.
Respiratory-related hospital admissions were lower for patients allocated to self-management interventions with action plans for exacerbations compared to those allocated to usual care.
What doesn’t work: Nothing noted.
What’s uncertain: Whether the difference in health-related quality of life between patients allocated to self-management interventions with action plans for exacerbations and usual care is of clinical significance is uncertain.