In chronic disease there is a trend towards looking at patients perspective and experience to improve health-care. A recent audit conducted with COPD-patients demonstrated a need to receive information about their disease and the need to be addressed as an individual, not as a disease. (Powell et al, Breathe, sept 2013)

To examine if addressing these 2 needs can change patients disease experience, we set up a study with 15 COPD-patients included in a Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program. Ten subjects had already undergone functional lung imaging in the past, using CT thorax images. These 10 patients received some personalized information about their disease, confronting them with their own lung images during each of 4 visits, spread over a period of 6 months. On each visit they filled out self-reporting questionnaires about symptoms and Healt-Related Quality Of Life. The other 5 patients filled out the questionnaires without receiving this information.

Patients receiving this personalized education, showed an improvement in the COPD Assessment Test (CAT) (p=0.023)(which measures the impact of COPD symptoms on daily life), whereas controls did not.

When the two groups were taken together, we can see symptom scores (as assessed by the Saint-George Respiratory Questionnaire and the Severe Respiratory Insufficiency Questionnaire) correlate with self-efficacy (Pulmonary Rehabilitation Adepted Index of Self-Efficacy). Symptom reporting seems to correlate with self-efficacy, which is a measure for self-confidence in disease.

This study shows how patient education using personalized feedback can improve patient reported symptoms, possibly by improving self-efficacy.