Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major public health issue. The prevalence of diagnosis in England in 2014-2015 was 1.82%, which equates to over one million people. 1 This places a considerable burden on the healthcare system as well as on the individuals living with the disease. 2 COPD is a common, preventable disease characterised by persistent respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. 3 The most common symptoms include breathlessness and cough with sputum. The most common causes are smoking, air pollution and other environmental exposures.While COPD is progressive and not fully reversible, it can be managed. Recommended treatment includes bronchodilator therapy and pulmonary rehabilitation (PR), which can improve exercise capacity, dyspnoea and psychological wellbeing. 4 In addition, the British Thoracic Society recommends that exercise should be sustained by patients graduating from PR programmes and that adjunct interventions should be introduced in order to maintain benefits gained. 5 One intervention, which has recently gained attention as a possible addition to medical management of long-term conditions, is participative singing. For example, studies have reported clinically significant improvements for mental health service users and better engagement and wellbeing for people living with
Purpose Clift and Morrison (2011) report that weekly singing over eight months for people with enduring mental health issues led to clinically important reductions in mental distress. The purpose of this paper is to test the robustness of the earlier findings. Design/methodology/approach Four community singing groups for people with mental health issues ran weekly from November 2014 to the end of 2015. Evaluation place over a six-month period using two validated questionnaires: the short Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE-10) questionnaire, and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). Findings In all, 26 participants completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires. CORE-10 scores were significantly reduced, and WEMWBS scores significantly increased. Comparisons with the earlier study found a similar pattern of improvements on CORE items that are part of the “problems” sub-scale in the full CORE questionnaire. There was also evidence from both studies of participants showing clinically important improvements in CORE-10 scores. Research limitations/implications The main limitations of the study are a small sample size and the lack of a randomised control group. Originality/value No attempts have been made previously to directly test the transferability of a singing for health model to a new geographical area and to evaluate outcomes using the same validated measure.
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