Effect of Specific Nursing Intervention on Respiratory Status of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) During Acute Exacerbation

Nurses are involved in the management of COPD patients at all stages, from prevention to provision of end-of-life care. So the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of implementing specific nursing intervention on the respiratory status of the COPD patients. Patients and methodA convenient sample consisted of 60 critically ill adult patients who were admitted to chest intensive care unit.They were diagnosed as advanced COPD .They were randomly divided into equal 30 patients for both study and control group. Two tools were designed and used to collect the necessary data for this study, First tool :respiratory status tool and Second tool : nursing intervention tool related to advanced COPD and its management. Resultsthe present study showed that there was statistical significant difference between study group before and after implementation of specific nursing interventionregarding arterial blood gases &pulmonary function test and there was a highly statistical significant increase in six-minute walk distance with mean ±SD beforespecific nursing intervention (81.73 ±19.14) that reached (117.87 ±23.11) afterspecific nursing intervention(P-value 0.001) among study group. Conclusion There were positive effects of implementing specific nursing interventionon the respiratory status of the COPD patients. Recommendation COPD patients with moderate and severe stages must be encourage to begin inpatients pulmonary nursing intervention especially exercise training as soon as possible after stabilization of their condition to decrease exacerbation and readmissions of COPD patients .