Study On The Status Of Disease Perception And Its Influencing Factors In Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background:Illness perception of people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease can affect their medication adherence, outcome of pulmonary rehabilitation, psychology and quality of life. The impact of illness perception on COPD patients can not be ignored, and it will affect the patients’health behavior and the final outcome of the disease. It is important to help COPD patients to establish correct view of the disease to improve the prognosis. The illness perception of COPD patients in our cultural background is still unknown. In order to perform effective intervention to improve the COPD patients’ illness perception, it is necessary to explore the current situation and influencing factors of illness perception.Objective:To describe the level of illness perception in COPD patients, and identify the influencing factors of illness perception.Method:Both Questionnaire and in-depth interview were utilized in this study.128 COPD patients were recruited from a tertiary general hospital in Beijing. Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire was used to collect data of illness perception. Meanwhile, purposive sampling was used to recruit 16 COPD patients to participate into the interview. Multiple linear regressions were used to determine the influencing factors of illness perception.Results:(1) The average total score of illness perception was 46.02 ± 10.28. The items were ranked from high to low according to the average score, concern (7.68 ± 2.07), timeline (6.83 ± 2.32), identity (6.29 ± 2.23), consequences (6.19 ±2.67), personal control (5.51 ±2.36), understanding (5.29 ±3.28), emotional response (4.92 ±2.77), treatment control (3.31 ±2.29). The main three reasons are smoking, environmental pollution and exposure in jobs. (2) Some themes were extracted from the qualitative data. COPD patients’activities, hobbies, social relationships were affected by the disease. The disease could not be controlled by their own, but mainly controlled by medication. There were some overt symptoms such as respiratory symptoms. Patients lacked of ways to understand the disease. (3) Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that the influencing factors were degree of dyspnea, depression and age. The major factors explained 31% of the variance in illness perception of people with COPD.Conclusion:A relatively high level of illness perception exists among people with COPD, and the influencing factors include degree of dyspnea, depression and age. Degree of dyspnea is the most important factor.