Objective: To investigate changes and differences in patient outcomes over time for 6, 7 and 8 week pulmonary rehabilitation programmes in order to identify optimal duration.
Setting: Community based pulmonary rehabilitation programmes in the East of England.
Participants: In total 363 participants completed one of the three pulmonary rehabilitation programmes. Patients with a chronic respiratory condition showing a commitment to the pulmonary rehabilitation programme and no contraindications to exercise were included.
Intervention: Pulmonary rehabilitation twice a week for 6, 7 or 8 weeks.
Main outcome measures: St Georges Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Incremental Shuttle Walk Test (ISWT).
Results: All programmes showed improvements in ISWT post rehabilitation, with the 8 week programme showing the greatest improvement.
Conclusion: Findings show that greatest improvements in terms of exercise capacity may be seen from 8 week pulmonary rehabilitation programmes, but that improvement for the ISWT can be obtained from 6, 7 or 8 week programmes.
Keywords: COPD; Duration of programme; Pulmonary rehabilitation.
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