CAT for Healthcare Professionals
Whose priorities?
There’s a difference between doctors' priorities when managing COPD and patients' priorities in coping with it.
A disparity exists between the priorities of COPD management as expressed in the guidelines and the priorities of patients when living with the disease. Patients focus on their inability to 'do' and on the social and psychological consequences of the disease, while management guidelines (and, consequently, healthcare professionals) tend to focus on clinical measures of disease severity1.
This may be, in part, because patients tend to be poor at expressing the social and psychological impact of their condition to those responsible for treating them, and because these are less readily measurable than, for example, lung function.
This can contribute to the sub-optimal management of COPD, with those
components of the illness that are most important to the patient sometimes
going unaddressed.
Reference
- Lost in translation, a report by the British Lung Foundation [Accessed April 2012].
Page Last Updated: April 25, 2012
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If you are a healthcare professional, this guide will show you how to use the CAT in the best way.
