Evaluation of Patient Compliance to Pulmonary Rehabilitation and Home Program at Our Unit

Objectives: It is recommended that patients continue to exercise for 3-5 days per week in order to maintain the gains achieved in the pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) program applied to patients with chronic lung disease. During the PR program or home program after the PR, patients leave the program for various reasons. We aimed to investigate the reasons of patients who could not complete the PR program by examining their files and to investigate the causes of the patients who underwent PR by applying a treatment compliance control survey. Methods: We reviewed the files of 69 patients who were included in the PR program in the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Unit of Burdur State Hospital. We saw that 18 could not complete the PR program. Of the remaining 51 patients, 36 could be reached by telephone. The questionnaire consisting of 7 questions was applied by phone call. Results: The patient compliance to our PR program was 73.9%. It was seen that 44% of the patients who had left the PR program due to health problems. 50% of our patients were women. 75% were in the 40-69 age range and 52.8% had asthma. Home program patient compliance was 63.9%. 69% of the patients who did not comply with the home program stated that they did not comply with the program due to lack of motivation. It was seen that the patients who applied home program properly performed breathing exercises more regularly than those who did not (p 0.003), they used their inhalers more regularly (p 0.047) and they could climb more stairs (p 0.047). The rate of admission to the hospital due to lung problems was 16.7% within one year following the post-PR period. Conclusion: The biggest problems that prevented compliance with the PR program and the proposed home program were the health status of the patients and lack of motivation in our study. There is a need for studies on what to do to increase motivation.