title: COPD management: role of symptom assessment in routine clinical practice.
abstract: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) present with a variety of symptoms that significantly impair health-related quality of life. Despite this, COPD treatment and its management are mainly based on lung function assessments. There is increasing evidence that conventional lung function measures alone do not correlate well with COPD symptoms and their associated impact on patients' everyday lives. Instead, symptoms should be assessed routinely, preferably by using patient-centered questionnaires that provide a more accurate guide to the actual burden of COPD. Numerous questionnaires have been developed in an attempt to find a simple and reliable tool to use in everyday clinical practice. In this paper, we review three such patient-reported questionnaires recommended by the latest Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease guidelines, ie, the modified Medical Research Council questionnaire, the clinical COPD questionnaire, and the COPD Assessment Test, as well as other symptom-specific questionnaires that are currently being developed.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands ; GRIAC (Groningen Research Institute for Asthma and COPD), University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Thys
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: van der Molen
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miravitlles
authors.forename: Janwillem W H
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Kocks
mesh_terms: D017281:Cost of Illness; D004417:Dyspnea / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; questionnaires; symptoms