Project Summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a global condition that significantly affects health, survival, and quality of life. COPD is a lead cause both of hospitalizations and of death in the United States. COPD patients report unmet needs regarding information about COPD and how to manage and cope with it. Many lack the information and skills that they need to correctly use inhalers, manage “breathlessness” episodes, and detect early signs of a COPD exacerbation.
Providing support to patients to help them better self-manage COPD has been shown in research studies to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce dyspnea and hospitalizations. However, it is still unclear how to most effectively deliver self-management support in nonresearch settings to help patients cope, stop smoking, assume an active lifestyle, and join pulmonary rehabilitation if applicable. Studies that involve “expert patients” or “peer mentors” in delivering self-management support to other patients with a similar health condition have shown positive change in behaviors and better outcomes. Using peer-to-peer communications is particularly promising as peer mentors possess credibility and can serve as role models, as people who understand, have been there, and done that.
Our goal is to compare two strategies that are designed to engage patients and family caregivers in successfully managing COPD in real-world settings. Both strategies aim to increase patients’ understanding of COPD and help them cope and adopt recommended treatments and a healthy lifestyle. One strategy relies on the healthcare professional (HCP) as the primary communicator (HCP arm), and the other uses a dual approach that involves both HCPs and peer mentors delivering such communication (HCP plus Peer arm). Peer mentors are COPD patients and caregivers who have successfully managed COPD and have received foundational training on peer mentoring.
We aim to
- conduct a randomized controlled trial in which the HCP and HCP plus Peer strategies are tested in real-world healthcare settings;
- compare the impact of these strategies on patient satisfaction, experience, activation, self-efficacy, self-care behavior, health status, quality of life, use of emergency department (ED) and hospital services, and survival; and
- compare the impact of these strategies on caregiver satisfaction, experience, self-efficacy, stress, and coping skills.
We will recruit 325 COPD patients. Each patient will have the opportunity to include one family caregiver with them in this study. The primary study outcome is the change in health-related quality of life. Secondary patient outcomes include decreased hospitalizations and ED visits, increased patient experience and satisfaction, smoking cessation, participation in pulmonary rehabilitation, and increased physical activity. We will also measure caregiver stress, coping, and preparedness for caregiving.
Project Details
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