Introduction:

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) causes physical, emotional and social limitation and deterioration in health-related quality of life (HRQL) in those who suffer from it. The educational component is essential in any Pulmonary Rehabilitation (RP) program, since it allows maintaining long-term intervention results. The objective of this study was to compare the effect of two educational strategies for COPD patients developed in two PR programs in Cali-Colombia.

Methods:

Longitudinal prospective study. Patients with COPD who agreed to sign the informed consent were selected, if convenient, during a period of 24 months. The patients belonged to two PR programs, one that carried out PR with individual education (PRIE) and another performed PR with individual education plus group (PRIG).

Results:

A total of 48 patients were admitted, dyspnea measured with the mMRC scale showed a statistically significant improvement at the beginning and at the end of the program for both groups, as well as the distance traveled in the 6MWT, with an improvement in meters of 85.9±12 in the PRIG group and 47.2±19 in the PRIE group. Regarding anxiety and depression, there were significant decreases in the HADS score only for the PRIG group (p=0.0120 and p=0.001, respectively). In the SGRQ questionnaire, all the domains showed significant changes for both groups, except for the activity domain, which only showed improvement for the PRIG group (p=0.000). Finally, in the LINQ questionnaire, both groups showed significant changes.

Conclusion:

Every PR program must develop an education component. In this study, COPD patients who received individual plus group education presented better results at the end of the intervention, especially in anxiety, depression and in the HRQoL activity domain.