Lived experiences of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD)-qualitative review

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, debilitating illness of aged population which causes consequential mortality and morbidity. The purpose of the study was to examine the qualitative research focused on lived experiences of COPD patients. Focus of the study was qualitative meta-synthesis on research integration by combining the findings of similar topics from qualitative studies. A comprehensive search for original relevant research studies which are published between 2000 and 2016 was conducted among three scientific data bases of PubMed, Ovid Medline and CINAHL. Data was extracted independently from the included studies by reviewers into the pre-designed structured data extraction forms. The study adopted a summative approach of qualitative content analysis to synthesize the data. The initial search produced 672 studies, after removing the duplicates 494 studies were included for title screen. After removing the non-relevant, non-English and quantitative studies, only ten articles were included for the full text review. Based on the inclusion criteria six relevant articles were included in the final review. The four areas of concern were, feeling incapacitated where breathing difficulty and bulk of carrying portable oxygen systems were the key factors for restricted walking and activities. Social isolation; here the social participation and physical involvement was interpreted as possible for few and was difficult for others. In views on death and dying; thoughts about “suicide” and “why living” and thought about future concerns related to aging, decline in cognitive function and deterioration in health were the major areas discussed.