The Characteristics related to Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Cross-sectional Study, Data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2015-2019.

Objective: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may experience reduced physical activity and quality of life (QoL) due to decreased pulmonary function. The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of pulmonary function, physical activity, and QoL of COPD patients. Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Methods: This study examined the published data of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2015-2019. Among 39,759 subjects who participated for 5 years, data from 151 patients diagnosed with COPD were analyzed separately. For the pulmonary function, the results of forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), FEV6, forced expiratory flow 25-75%, and peak expiratory flow were observed. Physical activity was identified as frequency and duration. For the QoL, EQ-5D-3L evaluation results were examined, and the frequency and index of the Korean version were investigated. Results: In pulmonary function, all variables were found to be lower than age and weighted matched normal values. COPD patients showed to perform very low levels of high/medium physical activity and sitting time was confirmed to be more than 8 hours a day. In QoL, it was found that the highest reporting rate of some problems was the “pain and discomfort” and “mobility”. Conclusions: It was found that COPD patients showed that the prevalence of circulatory disease was relatively high, lowered pulmonary function, and QoL. These can be improved through regular physical activity, and it is thought that this can be achieved through optimization of pulmonary rehabilitation.