Mortality and symptom burden post hospitalisation with COPD
Research type
Research Study
Full title
COPD: Comparison of existing prognostic tools for 1 year mortality and assessment of symptom burden to facilitate Advance Care Planning
IRAS ID
244285
Contact name
Stephen Bourke
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, 1 days
Research summary
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common progressive lung disease which causes breathlessness and frequent exacerbations, with patients often requiring hospitalisation. Patients with severe COPD commonly become housebound and lose their independence. They have a higher symptom burden than those with incurable lung cancer, yet are less likely to receive specialist palliative care, or to have been engaged in advance care planning (where patients discuss and often document their wishes regarding their future care). Hospital admissions become increasingly common towards the end-of-life; therefore, hospitalisation is a good opportunity to identify patients at risk of poor outcome. Such patients may wish to consider alternatives to admission and avoid intrusive treatments. Unfortunately, predicting which patients are likely to die in the near future is challenging thus far.
The first step required to improve provision of palliative care services, and ensure patients are given the opportunity to make truly informed decisions about their future care, is accurate identification of those most likely to benefit.
Well-designed clinical (prognostic) tools outperform clinician judgement in most settings. We will compare the accuracy of one year mortality prediction of several clinical tools in patients who survive a COPD exacerbation requiring admission. This will initially be performed using existing data collected during previous research (PEARL validation 1,593 patients), then confirmed in at least 310 patients admitted uniquely and consecutively with an exacerbation of COPD. The latter group of patients will be invited to participate in a longitudinal follow-up study, assessing symptom burden, quality of life, and readmissions over one year.
REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NE/0226
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jul 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion