QUALITATIVE
Patients with end-stage COPD did not ask for help because they felt normal and did not realise the situation could be improved
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Why do patients with end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) not actively ask for help?
Qualitative study with semistructured interviews.
Outpatient clinics in 4 hospitals and 1 specialist centre in the Netherlands.
A purposeful sample of 11 patients 61–83 years of age (73% men) who had Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stage IV COPD were identified from a sample of 82 patients from a quality of life study.
In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted, each lasting 1.5–2.5 hours. The first question asked was "Can you describe a normal day?" Other topics included activities of daily living, medical and informal care, social support, stigmatisation, anxiety, and the future. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analysed using an iterative process.
Patients with end-stage COPD had both physical and social limitations. Breathlessness and anxiety were the most common physical limitations. Patients were afraid of suffocating because of severe breathlessness. As a result of
Temple University Department of Nursing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Stroke
-
Drugs: infectious diseases
-
General practice / family medicine
-
Immunology (including allergy)
-
Pneumonia (infectious disease)
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
