Are symptoms experienced by patients admitted with COPD documented by health professionals? - A survey

Background: Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) experience long disease trajectories with heavy symptoms and reduced quality of life. There is an increasing attention on palliation for patients with COPD. Recognition of symptoms is a prerequisite for palliation. Aims and objectives: We put forward the hypothesis, that doctors or nurses do not recognize the symptomatology of patients with COPD. We aim to investigate the extent to which symptoms in patients with COPD are recognized in the documentation of the health professionals, indicated as “Doctors’ Symptom Recognition Rate” (DSR) or “Nurses’ Symptom Recognition Rate” (NSR), respectively. Method: Patients with COPD (N = 40) admitted in two respiratory units, responded within 48 hours on two symptom-screening-tools that access quality of life; CAT used for the treatment of COPD and EORTC-QLQ-C15-PAL used for palliation in patients with cancer. Patient-described symptomatology was compared to the symptoms as recognized in the documentation of doctors or nurses, respectively Results: The study shows a significant discrepancy between the symptomatology indicated by patients with COPD on CAT and EORTC-QLQ-C15-PAL, and the degree by which it is recognized in the medical records indicated in DSR or NSR. In 30 out of 44 items DSR or NSR were Conclusion: The low level of recognition reduces the ability to alleviate symptoms in patients with COPD and thus palliate