Rehabilitation programs for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have become increasingly common in recent years. However, the efficacy of these programs has not been evaluated in randomized experimental studies. The objective of this proposal is to compare the effectiveness of a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program versus education alone in producing improvement in both psychosocial and physiological functions in patients with COPD. We propose to randomly assign 120 COPD patients to either a rehabilitation program or to an education control group. The rehabilitation program will include twice weekly meetings for eight weeks. The program will have four components; 1) education, 2) physical and respiratory care, 3) psychosocial support, and 4) exercise training. Patients will return at monthly intervals for booster sessions. The control group will receive only the education component. Outcome measures will be selected from two general categories: psychosocial measures include: a general health status index, measures of efficacy expectations, health practices, depression, and social support. The physiological measures include: spirometry, plethysmographic measurements of static lung volumes, single breath diffusing capacity, rest and exercise measurements of arterial blood and expired gases to assess physical performance and gas exchange, and heart rate.
