CAT for Healthcare Professionals

The CAT aims to benefit both patients with COPD and healthcare professionals.

The CAT was designed to provide a standardised structure to patient consultation and monitoring, with the aim of improving the effectiveness of these processes. Additionally, the CAT should help patients to express themselves meaningfully, enabling them and their healthcare professionals to gain a common understanding of the impact that COPD has on a patient’s life. With this understanding, healthcare professionals should be better equipped to assign treatment appropriately. Overall, the CAT aims to help healthcare professionals reduce the impact of COPD on patients, and so improve health-related quality of life.

The CAT can provide useful information if used in an ongoing manner. A patient’s first CAT score will give a baseline measure of the impact of COPD on their life, and comparing consecutive scores for a patient can reveal whether the impact has changed over time.

 

The CAT was designed to:

Provide a simple and reliable measure of the impact of COPD on the patient’s health status
Enable patients and healthcare professionals to gain a common understanding of the impact that COPD has on a patient’s life
Complement measurements of lung function, to give a more complete picture of the impact of COPD on a patient’s life and of disease status
Provide a framework for patients and healthcare professionals to discuss the important aspects of the impact of COPD
Help ‘optimise‘ the management of COPD, in order to improve patients’ quality of life
Improve effectiveness of patient monitoring and consultation
Provide insight into disease progression and the benefit of any intervention

 

Video Clips
Professor Christine Jenkins discussing the benefits of the CAT &
Professor Fernando Martinez discussing the benefits of 'standardising' patient monitoring and consultation.

These files are very large and so will take some time to download. For best results please right click this link, select 'Save Target as' to download the video to your C Drive, and then play the video.

The CAT can be self-administered by patients

The CAT has been developed with major input from patients, who provided all of the items that are included. It is comprised of 8 questions, and is simple enough that nearly all patients should be able to understand and complete it easily by themselves. Therefore, you should not have to help your patients complete the test. In fact, experts involved in developing the CAT suggest it’s better if patients complete the test independently of their healthcare professionals¹.

Patients could be handed the test in the waiting room so that they can fill it out there and then, and their score can then be discussed during the consultation. Alternatively, patients can complete the test between consultations. Experts involved in developing the CAT suggest that patients should complete the CAT every 3-6 months¹. Some patients may like to use it more frequently at home to monitor their condition.

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Reference

1. The COPD Assessment Test healthcare professional user guide: expert guidance on frequently asked questions. Jones PW, Jenkins C, Bauerle O (on behalf of the CAT Development Steering Group).

Page Last Updated: April 25, 2012

COPD Assessment Test and CAT logo is a trade mark of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies.
©2009 GlaxoSmithKilne group of companies. All rights reserved.

 
To print a paper version of CAT, click here. You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this file. Click here to download Adobe Acrobat.
 
If you are a healthcare professional, this guide will show you how to use the CAT in the best way.

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