A study of patients’ respiratory and cardiovascular health literacy and COPD self-management skills

Kotlyarov S.N., Uryasev O.M., Suchkov I.A.

Backgraund: despite the modern intensive development of world medicine chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains an important problem. This is due to its high prevalence, late diagnosis and unsatisfactory treatment results of many of the patients, which is largely due to the lack of patient participation in the self-management of the disease.

Aims: to study patients’ literacy in respiratory and cardiovascular health issues and to assess self-management skills in the course of COPD.

Materials and methods: a study of patients’ respiratory and cardiovascular health literacy and evaluation of COPD self-management skills was conducted. A structured interview was conducted using a questionnaire based on the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire and the Disease Awareness Questionnaire for COPD (DACQ).

Results: 283 patients with COPD with a mean age of 63.01 (95% CI 62.05; 63.97) years living in both urban and rural areas were included in the study. 14.4% of patients had higher education, 51% of patients had secondary vocational education, and 34.6% had secondary general education. The analysis showed a lack of patient understanding of key aspects of COPD management. Patients with COPD experience difficulties in finding medical information and following doctor’s orders. At the same time, the age of the patients showed a correlation with the answers to the questions assessing patients’ health literacy. Age was shown to correlate with the response to a question about the ability to understand what the doctor says (r = — 0.799 (CI -0.839 to -0.749) at p<0.0001), with the response to a question about the ability to use information obtained from the doctor to make decisions about their disease (r = -0.825 from -0.861 to -0.781 ) at p<0.0001). Insufficient levels of patient self-management training in COPD were also shown. While COPD exacerbation criteria were understood by 54.6% of patients, symptom management skills were fully or partially taught to only 14.6% of patients.

Conclusions: COPD patients were shown to have insufficient respiratory and cardiovascular health literacy and COPD awareness, as well as insufficient self-management skills. The greatest lack of literacy was associated with increasing age and low levels of education.

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