Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the top five diseases treated
at Sungmen Hospital. This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out to review
the management practice of COPD patients in Sungmen Hospital. The subjects studied
were 167 patients who attended the COPD Clinic from August to October 2007. The
majority of patients (77.8%) were male, with the mean age being 68.2 years. Ninety-four
percent of them had a history of smoking and 26.7 percent were still active smokers.
Diagnosis of COPD was made in 84.7 percent of the cases by history-taking, combined
with physical examination and pulmonary function test. The mean values of FVC, FEV1
and %FEV1 were 68.6, 55.5 and 58.4 percent, respectively. The patients were categorized
based on the severity of the disease; 71.2 percent of the patients suffered moderate to
severe disease. The study disclosed that COPD patients with mild to moderately severe
morbidity had received excessive medications, according to the COPD clinical practice
guidelines. Sustained-release theophylline was prescribed at a high rate in every stage of
severity of the patients. More needed long-acting beta-2 agonist inhalers and long-term
oxygen therapy, but these therapies were not available due to the patients’ economic constraints.
The therapeutic management of COPD patients, by establishing a COPD clinic
in a community hospital, using existing hospital resources, would offer better efficiency
in the diagnosis and treatment of COPD patients.
