Effectiveness of nordic walking in patients with asthma: A study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

María Vilanova-Pereira; Cristina Jácome; Manuel Jorge Rial Prado; Margarita Barral-Fernández; Marina Blanco Aparicio; Lara Fontán García-Boente; Ana Lista-Paz

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0281007

Effectiveness of nordic walking in patients with asthma: A study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

PLoS One. 2023 Mar 9;18(3):e0281007. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281007. eCollection 2023.

Authors

María Vilanova-Pereira¹, Cristina Jácome², Manuel Jorge Rial Prado³, Margarita Barral-Fernández¹, Marina Blanco Aparicio⁴, Lara Fontán García-Boente⁵, Ana Lista-Paz^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ The Faculty of Physiotherapy, The University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.
² Center for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS), Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto (FMUP), Porto, Portugal.
³ Department of Allergy, University Hospital of A Coruña, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.
⁴ Department of Respiratory Medicine, University Hospital of A Coruña, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.
⁵ Pulmonology Service, Hospital HM Modelo, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.
⁶ Psychosocial and Functional Rehabilitation Intervention Research Group, The University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain.

Abstract

Background: Patients with asthma often consider their symptomatology a barrier to exercise, leading to a reduced physical activity level. This study aims to determine whether the effect of a Nordic walking (NW) training program plus education and usual care is superior to educational and usual care only, in terms of exercise tolerance and other health-related outcomes in patients with asthma. The second aim is to explore the patients' experience with the NW program.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial will be conducted with 114 adults with asthma recruited in sanitary area of A Coruña, Spain. Participants will be randomized to NW or control groups in blocks of six and in the same proportion in each group. Participants in the NW group will enrol in supervised sessions during eight weeks, three times/week. All participants will receive three educational sessions on asthma self-management plus usual care (S1 Appendix). Outcomes such as exercise tolerance (primary outcome), physical activity level, asthma-related symptoms and asthma control, dyspnea, lung function, handgrip strength, health related quality of life, quality of sleep, treatment adherence and healthcare resources use will be measured pre and postintervention, and at three and six months of follow-up. Participants in the NW group will additionally participate in focus groups.

Discussion: This is the first study analysing the effect of NW in patients with asthma. NW combined with education and usual care is expected to improve exercise tolerance, but also asthma-related outcomes. If this hypothesis is confirmed, a new community-based therapeutic approach will be available for patients with asthma.

Trial registration: Study registered in ClinicalTrials.gov with number of register NCT05482620.

Copyright: © 2023 Vilanova-Pereira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Clinical Trial Protocol
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Asthma* / therapy
Exercise
Hand Strength
Humans
Nordic Walking
Quality of Life*
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Walking

Associated data

ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT05482620

Grants and funding

Funding: This trial was partially funded from: - Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), giving 15000€. ALP. https://www.separ.es/ - Official College of Physiotherapists from Galicia (CoFiGa), giving 7000€. ALP. https://www.cofiga.org/ - The University of A Coruña donated part of the walking poles. ALP. https://www.udc.es/ - Decathlon® donated part of the walking poles. MVP. https://www.decathlon.es/es/ The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.