Abstract
Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on people with COPD is important. COPD is a chronic lung disease and causes increased morbidity and mortality. Individuals with COPD are also prone to recurrent chest infections because of the decrease in lung function. When COVID-19, an infectious respiratory disease broke out this impacted many people worldwide, especially those with chronic lung disease. The severity of COVID-19 symptoms can range from mild to very severe symptoms and death. Individuals with COPD have a greater risk for severe COVID-19. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD and increases the disease severity. Smoking cessation is the best intervention to slow COPD progression followed by pulmonary rehabilitation.
The aim of this integrative review is to review current studies that look at the experiences of COPD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect on their smoking status. This research was undertaken using an integrative review methodology. The Whittemore and Knafl's (2005) integrative review five-step approach is used.
The findings showed four key themes related to the experiences of COPD patients during COVID-19. These themes are general health and well-being, smoking, fear of COVID- 19, and healthcare support. Overall, COPD patients reported negative psychosocial effects but had less hospitalizations and less COPD exacerbations. Smoking rates had declined, but patients reported stigma for being smokers/ex-smokers. A lot of patients felt fear of catching COVID-19 and worried about death and dying. The healthcare support among COPD patients had declined during COVID-19, but telehealth was an alternative option to maintain contact with patients.
Implications for practice demonstrate the importance of psychosocial support for COPD patients during a pandemic. Enhancing the use of telehealth can have an important role to maintain continuity of care for COPD patients. COPD patients benefited from isolation restrictions. However, these restrictions did have negative impacts to psychosocial well-being. Engaging with family or loved ones, and accessing online resources can be beneficial for COPD patients.