Source: Annual Congress 2007 - Exercise: measurements, techniques and paradigms
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

Background
Dyspnea limits exercise in patients with COPD and is known to induce anxiety. Little is known whether baseline anxiety contributes to exercise-induced dyspnea. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between baseline anxiety and dyspnea on exertion in patients with COPD.
Methods
We examined 87 patients, 42 male, mean age 61 (sd 10.6), with moderate to severe COPD (GOLD class II-IV). All patients performed pulmonary function tests and an incremental cycle ergometry. The Borg scale was used to measure the level of dyspnea during exercise testing. Anxiety was assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Data was analysed using Spearman‘s correlation coefficients and logistic regression.
Results
Dyspnea on exertion was significantly correlated with baseline anxiety (R = 0.34), age (R = -0.29) and Wpeak (R = 0.30). Logistic regression analysis showed that higher baseline anxiety was significantly associated with high dyspnea on exertion (OR = 1.19, R² = 0.15).

Logistic Regression analysis( method enter) dependent variable : low/high dyspnea

	EXP (B)	P	95% CI for exp (B)	Nagelkerke R2
Anxiety	1.19	0.00	1.07-1.35	.15
Wpeak	1.02	0.08	1.00-1.03	.09
Sex	0.56	0.29	0.19-1.64	.02
Age	0.99	0.70	0.94-1.05	.00
FEV1%pred	1.00	0.93	0.96-1.04	.00
Cumulative R2				.25

Sex: 0 = female, 1 = male

Conclusions
We conclude that dyspnea on exertion is, for a substantial part, determined by baseline anxiety. We suggest that attention should be given to anxiety management in patients with COPD.

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Citations should be made in the following way:
N. de Voogd, J. Wempe, G. Koëter, K. Postema, J. Snijders, A. Ranchor, E. van Sonderen, R. Sanderman (Groningen, Netherlands). Anxiety predicts dyspnea on exertion in patients with COPD. Eur Respir J 2007; 30: Suppl. 51, 1990

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