PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Athanasios Tselebis
AU  - Dionisios Bratis
AU  - Argyro Pachi
AU  - Epaminondas Kosmas
AU  - Maria Harikiopoulou
AU  - Elpida Theodorakopoulou
AU  - Silvia Dumitru
AU  - Georgios Moussas
AU  - Nikolaos Siafakas
AU  - Nikolaos Tzanakis
TI  - Impact of a pulmonary rehabilitation program on psychopathology of patients diagnosed with COPD
DP  - 2012 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P1467
VI  - 40
IP  - Suppl 56
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P1467.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P1467.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40
AB  - Introduction: Psychological comorbidities such as anxiety and depression are common in COPD. Recent studies suggest a decrease in both anxiety and depression in patients with COPD who attended a pulmonary rehabilitation program (RP). However there is insufficient literature on changes in general psychopathology after RP.Aims and Objectives: To examine the changes in general psychopathology of patients with COPD after participating in a rehabilitation program.Methods: The participants were patients (80 men and 21 women) with pure COPD who attended a three month RP. The patients' psychopathology was assessed, by the start and by the end of the PR, using the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R), which is a self-report questionnaire widely used in both normal and distressed populations. In order to determine COPD severity a spirometric evaluation before and after bronchodilation was performed.Results: Means of age and of FEV1 % of predicted were 64.15 ±8.13 and 43.51±21.53, respectively.Statistically significant changes (Paired t test) were observed at the end of the RP on the following scales: somatisation (0.70 VS 0.45, p<0.01), obsessive-compulsive (0.75 VS 0.48, p<0.01), interpersonal sensitivity (0.44 VS 0.35, p<0.05), depression (0.81 VS 0.48, p<0.01), anxiety (0.63 VS 0.35, p<0.01), hostility (0.53 VS 0.31, p<0.01), phobic anxiety (0.33 VS 0.17, p<0.01), paranoid ideation (0.43 VS 0.33, p<0.05). However, there was no statistical difference regarding the psychoticism scale (0.15 VS 0.13, p>0.05).Conclusions: A pulmonary rehabilitation program may improve psychopathological symptoms, particularly those of the neurotic spectrum, of COPD patients.