Undiagnosed Chronic Airflow Obstruction Results In Work Loss And Impairs Quality Of Life

Main Category: COPD
Article Date: 29 May 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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The awareness of the individual and societal burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) continues to increase. However, data on the impact of the disease in workers are scarce.

Nicolas Roche (University René Descartes in Paris, France) and his colleagues studied 5,008 subjects visiting health prevention centres in France. Prevalence of airflow obstruction was 7.5%. A diagnosis of respiratory disease was reported for only 6.1% of these subjects. Severity was mild to moderate in 95%.

Despite this, quality of life was significantly impaired in these subjects, who also reported more dyspnoea and more missed working days (mean values: 6.71 days versus 1.45 days per patient per year in patients without airflow obstruction) than those without COPD.

Thus, increasing efforts directed at improving the diagnosis of COPD in working subjects may be of value to decrease the burden of the disease.

Title of original article-
Impact of chronic airflow obstruction in a working population

The European Respiratory Journal is the peer-reviewed scientific publication of the European Respiratory Society (more than 8,000 specialists in lung diseases and respiratory medicine in Europe, the United States and Australia).

European Respiratory Journal