COPD and Socially Vulnerable Individuals

The trial investigates and describes the prevalence of COPD in patients who are in the social nurses' target group and investigates the effect of opportunistic screening for COPD in these vulnerable patients. The study population is patients who have been referred to a social nurse at hospitals in the Capital Region, Central Denmark Region and Region Zealand of Denmark during the inclusion period, and monitor them for up to 5 years in order to investigate variables that are significant in terms of the patients' treatment, hospitalisations, and mortality in relation to COPD. Our hypothesis is that there will be a higher incidence of COPD among those patients with whom the social nurses have contact than in the general population.