Abstract
Background: Chronic breathlessness is a prevalent disabling syndrome affecting many people for years. Identifying the impact of chronic breathlessness on people's activities in the general population is pivotal for designing symptom management strategies.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between chronic breathlessness and activities respondents identify can no longer be undertaken (“activities forgone”).
Design: This population-based cross-sectional online survey used a market research company's database of 30,000 registrants for each sex, generating the planned sample size—3000 adults reflecting Australia's 2016 Census by sex, age group, state of residence, and rurality.
Setting/Subjects: The population of focus (n = 583) reported a modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) breathlessness scale ≥1 and experienced this breathlessness for ≥3 months.
Measurements: Activities forgone were categorized by mMRC using coding derived from the Dyspnea Management Questionnaire domains. Activities were classified as “higher/lower intensity” using Human Energy Expenditure scale.
Results: Respondents were male 50.3%; median age 50.0 (IQR 29.0); with 66% living in metropolitan areas; reporting 1749 activities forgone. For people with mMRC 1 (n = 533), 35% had not given up any activity, decreasing to 9% for mMRC 2 (n = 38) and 3% for mMRC 3–4 (n = 12). Intense sport (e.g., jogging and bike riding) was the top activity forgone: 42% (mMRC 1), 32% (mMRC 2), and 36% (mMRC 3–4). For respondents with mMRC 3–4, the next most prevalent activities forgone were “sexual activities” (14%), “lower intensity sports” (11%), and “other activities” (11%).
Conclusions: People progressively reduce a wide range of activities because of their chronic breathlessness.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association between chronic breathlessness and activities respondents identify can no longer be undertaken (“activities forgone”).
Design: This population-based cross-sectional online survey used a market research company's database of 30,000 registrants for each sex, generating the planned sample size—3000 adults reflecting Australia's 2016 Census by sex, age group, state of residence, and rurality.
Setting/Subjects: The population of focus (n = 583) reported a modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) breathlessness scale ≥1 and experienced this breathlessness for ≥3 months.
Measurements: Activities forgone were categorized by mMRC using coding derived from the Dyspnea Management Questionnaire domains. Activities were classified as “higher/lower intensity” using Human Energy Expenditure scale.
Results: Respondents were male 50.3%; median age 50.0 (IQR 29.0); with 66% living in metropolitan areas; reporting 1749 activities forgone. For people with mMRC 1 (n = 533), 35% had not given up any activity, decreasing to 9% for mMRC 2 (n = 38) and 3% for mMRC 3–4 (n = 12). Intense sport (e.g., jogging and bike riding) was the top activity forgone: 42% (mMRC 1), 32% (mMRC 2), and 36% (mMRC 3–4). For respondents with mMRC 3–4, the next most prevalent activities forgone were “sexual activities” (14%), “lower intensity sports” (11%), and “other activities” (11%).
Conclusions: People progressively reduce a wide range of activities because of their chronic breathlessness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 166-170 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Palliative Medicine Reports |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Aug 2020 |
Bibliographical note
This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Keywords
- breathlessness
- dyspnea
- symptom
- symptom assessment