Patient-Reported Dyspnea in COPD Reliability and Association With Stage of Disease

Abstract

Background: Although questionnaires are used frequently with patients to self-report the severity of dyspnea as related to activities of daily living, the reliability of these instruments has not been established. The two purposes of this study were to examine the test-retest reliability of three widely used dyspnea instruments and to compare dyspnea scores at different stages of disease. Methods: At paired baseline visits, 101 stable patients with COPD were tested; at paired follow-up visits at 3 months, 89 of these patients were tested. At each visit, patients rated dyspnea with three instruments presented in random order and then performed post-bronchodilator therapy lung function tests. Conclusions: Test-retest reliability was acceptable for patient-reported dyspnea scores using three clinical instruments at baseline and at the 3-month follow-up. Our results demonstrate for the first time that patient-reported dyspnea ratings are related to the stage of disease severity.

An official American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society statement: research questions in COPD

“…The BMI is obtained by dividing the weight (kg) by the square of the height (m 2 ); values <21 kg·m −2 are associated with increased mortality [38,39]. The severity of functional dyspnoea can be assessed using the mMRC (table 3) [40]. Increased mMRC levels of dyspnoea are associated with increased mortality [41].…”

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