Abstract
BACKGROUND: Bronchiectasis is a chronic debilitating suppurative disease that significantly impacts quality of life. Clinical outcomes like exacerbations, are usually physician centered; however, the patients' experience, health-related behaviors, and expectations have frequently been neglected. In addition, patients' health perceptions may be influenced by their culture.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the health perception and behavior in adults with bronchiectasis.
METHODS: We performed semi-directive interviews, which were audiotaped, with 60 adults with bronchiectasis between April 2016 and December 2016. Our interview focused on issues related to symptom perception, access to health-care resources and patient-physician communication, medication adherence, outcomes and expectations, quality of life, and social relationships.
RESULTS: The subjects with bronchiectasis developed varying patterns of symptom perception (ranging from highly distressing to barely disturbing) and had conflicting opinions on whether and when they should seek health-care services (ranging from active consultations to being totally passive or resistant to seek health care). We observed certain discrepancies between symptom perception and health-related behaviors. Overall, medication adherence was suboptimal, but the subjects were willing to participate in clinical trials and receive complementary alternative medications despite concerns regarding adverse effects of prolonged treatment. There were concerns about the adverse effects of bronchiectasis on fertility and infectiousness to others, although most subjects disregarded these issues.
CONCLUSIONS: The diverse symptom perception and health-related behaviors highlighted the need for evaluation and intervention in bronchiectasis. These findings will provide rationales for refining future health care through comprehensive (particularly psychological) interventions worldwide.
Footnotes
- Correspondence: Rong-chang Chen MD, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, 151 Yanjiang Road, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China 510120. E-mail: chenrc{at}vip.163.com.
Dr Guan declared that he has received Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou No. 201710010097, Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme 2017, and National Natural Science Foundation (No. 81870003). Dr Gao declared that he has received National Natural Science Foundation No. 81500006. Drs Zhong and Chen declared that they had received Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University ITR0961, The National Key Technology R&D Program of the 12th National Five-year Development Plan 2012BAI05B01 and National Key Scientific & Technology Support Program: Collaborative innovation of Clinical Research for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer No. 2013BAI09B09. None of the funding sources had any role with the study. The remaining authors have disclosed no conflicts of interest.
Supplementary material related to this paper is available at http://www.rcjournal.com.
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