Need help assessing how COPD is affecting your patients’ quality of life?
As a busy primary health care professional, you probably don’t have time to evaluate the dozens of tools that have been developed for this purpose.
That’s why the IPCRG Research Network has reviewed more than 42 of them and produced a practical guide to COPD "Wellness" tools (click here for PDF) with information on nine tools judged to be the most relevant to patients with COPD managed in primary care. The guide includes:
- A brief summary of how each tool works and where to get it
- Six criteria you can use to rate the tools to select the one best suited to your practical needs
- A “smiley face” sample grid showing how the IPCRG team rated the tools against the criteria
The methodology and background have been published in the open access journal International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Cave AJ, Atkinson L, Tsiligianni IG, Kaplan AG. Assessment of COPD wellness tools for use in primary care: an IPCRG initiative. International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. 2012;7:447-456. doi:10.2147/COPD.S29868.
New COPD assessment tool guides coming soon for measuring comorbidities in COPD.
We hope you find this useful and welcome your feedback.
Other guides
- For a similar practical guide to Asthma control tools (published in 2016), please see: Asthma Control Tools: Users' Guide
- Users' guide to measuring co-morbidity in COPD
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