Physical Activity and Self-Efficacy After Pulmonary Rehabilitation

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is effective in increasing level of (a) physical activity (PA) and (b) self-efficacy in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). PR is an evidence-based multidisciplinary approach consisting primarily of a supervised exercise program with educational components. It has demonstrated high efficacy in improving dyspnoea, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and functional exercise capacity in patients with COPD. Despite these improvements, there is no conclusive evidence that these benefits translate to an increase in PA in patient's day-to-day life. This is of concern as low PA is a predictor of all cause mortality, correlated with lower HRQoL, increased level of dyspnoea and higher number of hospital admissions in this group of patients. Self-efficacy is found to be an instigating force in forming intention to exercise and in maintaining practice for an extended time. Self-efficacy may be the key in determining whether a patient translates the improvement in exercise tolerance to actually being more physically active. Based on current knowledge, there is insufficient evidence that self-efficacy increases after pulmonary rehabilitation and no correlation has been made between level of self-efficacy and level of PA in these group of patients. Hence this study aims to find out whether the existing PR program increases level of PA and self-efficacy. Correlation between level of PA and self-efficacy will be made.