Exploring the impact of singing on people with COPD
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A study exploring the impact of attending a singing group on people’s experience of COPD
IRAS ID
276179
Contact name
Inez Lane
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Surrey
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 30 days
Research summary
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a long-term respiratory condition which affects roughly a million people in the UK. The main symptom experienced by those with COPD is breathlessness and can have a debilitating effect.
Interventions have been developed to support this patient group, such as Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR), which works towards improving a patient’s ability to manage their breathlessness and increase their activity. However, even after completing PR, patients report experiencing significant levels of breathlessness and so further interventions have been designed and researched to support this population.
Singing interventions teach breath control and research has suggested it can help people manage the symptoms of COPD. Quantitative studies suggest there are improvements in measures of quality of life but not physiological measures of breathlessness. Qualitative studies find participates reported improvements in quality of life and breathlessness.
This study is looking to explore the mismatch between qualitative and quantitative findings by interviewing participants to understand what they see as the benefits of the singing intervention and how they explain the mechanisms of change from the intervention. This study will interview 12-30 participants who have completed a 10-week singing intervention, run by researchers in the Sidney de Haan Centre (National Research Ethics Service (NRES) reference 19/LO/0159). This study will follow the participants up 6 months after the intervention and use semi-structured interviews. This study will then analyse the data with thematic analysis.REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
20/NS/0047
Date of REC Opinion
6 Apr 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion