Quality of Life and Symptom Burden Among Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a progressive respiratory disorder associated with persistent respiratory symptoms, psychological morbidity, functional limitation, and impaired health-related quality of life. In Pakistan, hospital-based evidence on COPD-related symptom burden and quality-of-life impairment remains clinically important for patient-centered assessment. Objective: To assess quality of life and symptom burden among diagnosed patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease attending a tertiary respiratory care hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. Methods: This hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study included 277 diagnosed COPD patients recruited from the Pulmonology Outpatient Department, medical ward, and follow-up clinic of Gulab Devi Hospital, Lahore. Available aggregated data were analyzed descriptively. Categorical variables were summarized as frequencies, percentages, and 95% confidence intervals, while quality-of-life scores reported in prior COPD studies were summarized as mean ± standard deviation with 95% confidence intervals where calculable. Results: Recalculated burden estimates showed high psychological morbidity, with depression ranging from 50.9% to 67.1% and anxiety from 19.9% to 70.4%. Respiratory symptom estimates included cough in 67.9%, breathlessness in 62.5%, cough with sputum in 42.2%, and dyspnea in 29.2%. Biomass fuel exposure was represented by 39.7%, COPD duration below five years by 54.9%, and productivity loss by 31.8%. Published COPD quality-of-life scores demonstrated impairment across SGRQ, SGRQ-C, WHOQOL, and EQ-5D-5L measures. Conclusion: COPD burden in this hospital-based context appears multidimensional, involving respiratory, psychological, exposure-related, functional, and quality-of-life domains. Patient-level inferential analysis is required to identify independent predictors of poor quality of life.