Relationship between physical activity and complications in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a hospital-based survey

  Objective  To investigate the association of physical activity intensity with complication prevalence among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

  Methods  From September 2016 to September 2017, we conducted a survey among 330 COPD inpatients recruited with stratified random sampling in Guiyang public health treatment center. A self-designed questionnaire, International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), Fatigue Severity Scale-9 (FSS-9), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were used in the survey. The inpatients′ lung function were assessed based on the criteria in Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD).

  Results  Of the 315 inpatients completing the survey, 49 (15.56%), 178 (56.51%), and 88 (27.94%) were assessed having low, moderate, and high intensity of physical activity. Among the inpatients, 204 (64.76%) were diagnosed with various complications, and the complication prevalence was 28.25% for infection, 11.75% for cardiovascular disease, 11.11% for chronic renal failure, 11.11% for cognitive dysfunction, 11.11% for metabolic syndrome, 7.30% for osteoporosis, 6.03% for skeletal muscle disorders, and 3.49% for lung cancer, respectively. For all the inpatients with complications, 56 (27.45%), 61 (29.90%), and 87 (42.65%) had one, two, and three or more complications. Unconditional multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that compared to those with low physical activity intensity, the inpatients with moderate and high physical activity intensity were at a significantly decreased risk of having complications, with the odds ratios of 0.486 (95% confidence interval 95% CI: 0.243 – 0.973) and 0.368 (95% CI: 0.151 – 0.897) after adjusting for potential confounding factors as gender, age, education, marital status, employment, residence, smoking, alcohol drinking, course of disease, lung function, fatigue, anxiety, and depression.

  Conclusion  Multiple complications, especially infections and cardiovascular diseases, are prevalent among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the intensity of physical activity may inversely correlates with complication prevalence in the patients.