International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Psychological distress in COPD – prevalence, impact and management", organized by Guest Advisor Dr Anders Løkke in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a persistent and debilitating respiratory condition that causes airway and systemic symptoms. The gradual worsening of symptoms is in many cases punctuated by severe exacerbations that often include feelings of suffocation and need for hospitalization. Living with COPD has a negative psychological impact on patients and their caregivers. Vicious cycles of breathlessness, anxiety, social isolation, and depressive symptoms critically affect the functional capacity and quality of life of the patients, and influence partnerships and family life. Over the recent decades, more attention has been given to the psychological effects of COPD. However, clinical practice is still characterized by stigmatization and social inequality, mainly due to the role of smoking in the development of the disease and the invisibility of breathlessness. Therefore, increasing focus on psychological distress and its management in COPD is needed.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer-review as part of our standard editorial process. Guest Advisors for this collection will not be involved in peer-reviewing manuscripts unless they are an existing member of the Editorial Board. Please review the journal Aims and Scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2023.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code OHCZZ to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

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Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Personalizing self-management interventions in COPD – Tailoring towards individual preferences, needs, competences, disease characteristics and comorbidities", organized by Guest Advisors Dr. Anke Lenferink, Dr. Tanja Effing, Dr. Marjolein Brusse-Keizer, and Prof. Dr. Job van der Palen in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by respiratory symptoms (dyspnea, cough, sputum production) that cause persistent, often progressive, airflow obstruction. Patients with COPD may experience acute increased respiratory symptoms called exacerbations that influence their health status and prognosis. Due to the growing number of patients with COPD, tailored approaches, such as self-management interventions, are needed to manage patient care, provide support, and improve patients’ disease management skills to enhance health outcomes. Over the recent years, evidence confirms that COPD self-management interventions are beneficial to reduce respiratory-related hospital admissions and improve patients’ health-related quality of life. With increased tailoring of self-management interventions towards patients’ preferences, needs, competences, disease characteristics and co-existing morbidities even more patients with COPD may benefit.

It is important that patients understand the risks associated with their health condition(s) and the potential benefits that behavioral change can bring. This will increase the chance that they will actually change health behavior and strive for optimal disease control. Providing a self-management intervention that is tailored to the patient and aimed at increasing knowledge, self-management skills, and health behavior, is therefore crucial. If the patient is ready and committed to change behavior, adherence to the self-management intervention will be high and beneficial effects can be expected. Personalized training with motivational interviewing could facilitate patient readiness before starting a self-management intervention. Because of the heterogeneity in patients, it is challenging to formulate clear recommendations regarding the most effective self-management intervention components, its contents (e.g., skills taught) and delivery modalities. Increasing the focus on tailored COPD self-management interventions that fit patients’ needs, preferences, competences, disease characteristics and comorbidities is therefore needed.

This collection intends to provide a synthesis of original research articles on personalized self-management interventions, e.g., based on individual preferences, needs, and competences. Also, original research on relevant topics such as patient adherence to self-management interventions, tailoring towards disease characteristics (e.g., severity and type of exacerbations) and tailoring towards co-existing chronic conditions (e.g., heart failure) are welcome. The methods might cover both quantitative and qualitative study designs. Relevant review articles on the abovementioned topics can be submitted. All manuscripts will be subject to the regular peer-review process.

The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2023.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code JKQBL to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

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Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Cardiovascular disease and COPD", organized by Guest Advisors Prof. Jennifer Quint and Dr. Mohsen Sadatsafavi in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Aging and smoking remain important shared risk factors for both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). However, it is increasingly accepted that shared risk factors such as smoking are not the sole reason for the observed association between COPD and CVD, and COPD and CVD are more closely intertwined mechanistically than was previously thought. At the same time, our perceptions of COPD as a disease have changed. No longer considered "just a disease of the lungs", COPD has recently been described as the pulmonary component of systematic endothelial disease whereby a range of inflammatory processes simultaneously affect multiple organs. This implies the presence of many other shared risk factors and common pathways between CVD and COPD. Further complicating this picture are the potentially direct effects between COPD on CVD. For example, acute exacerbations of COPD are shown to be associated with an increased risk of CVDs.

CVDs are arguably the most important comorbidities for people with COPD. Not only are they common, their presence is associated with increased risk for hospitalization, longer length of stay, and mortality in COPD. The economic and humanistic burden associated with CVD in this population is considerable and the cumulative costs of treating comorbidities may even exceed that of treating COPD itself. The optimal management of CVD risk and outcomes (e.g., the CVD risk threshold that should invoke preventive therapies) in patients with COPD might differ from such management in the general non-COPD population. Reciprocally, optimal management of COPD (e.g., prevention of exacerbations) in presence of comorbid CVD might be different from the guideline-recommended management of COPD in the absence of CVD.

This collection will include original research and systematic reviews covering basic science, translational and epidemiological research, as well as health outcomes and economics research around the broad topic of COPD and CVD. The focus is on ischemic aspects (e.g. myocardial infarction and stroke) as well as heart failure. The issue will cover diagnostics, management, and the impact of concomitant CVD on the natural history of COPD (and vice versa). The management of COPD in presence of concomitant CVD, and CVD risk management in patients with COPD, are also of interest for this series.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer-review as part of our standard editorial process. Guest Advisors for this collection will not be involved in peer-reviewing manuscripts unless they are an existing member of the Editorial Board. Please review the journal Aims and Scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submissions is 31 July 2023.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code TMWVA to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

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Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Promoting Optimized Health Care for Individuals with COPD in the Era of Telehealth", organized by Guest Advisors Dr. Yumin Zhou (The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, China, [email protected]), Dr. Juan Chen (General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, China, [email protected]), and Dr. Ning Deng (Zhejiang University, China, [email protected]) in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

This subject highlights the telehealth of COPD for better management and care of COPD patients. As we all know, COPD is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with an economic and social burden that is both substantial and increasing. Patients with COPD typically complain of dyspnea, activity limitation and/or cough and may experience exacerbations that require specific preventive and therapeutic measures. However, many challenges are encountered in delivering preventive and therapeutic measures, including the COVID-19 pandemic and people living far from their healthcare providers and having limited access to services. Now, as a means to mitigate the risk of viral transmission for both patients and clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, many health systems have rapidly converted ≥70% of their outpatient visits to telehealth via phone or video delivery. Due to this, telehealth system has become a hotbed of research in recent years.

Telehealth may offer a bridge to care and now offers a chance to consider virtual and hybrid virtual/in-person care models, with a goal of improved healthcare access, outcomes, and affordability. There are many critical potential benefits of telehealth, as follows:
• Telehealth systems may improve COPD medication adherence. Self-management education by telehealth system can help a person understand their disease and the benefits of proper use of medication.
• Telehealth technologies could improve the delivery of healthcare for people with COPD, reduce exacerbations, improve quality of life, anxiety and depression, and lower rates of hospitalization and emergency department visits.
• Tele-rehabilitation has been proposed as an alternative to the traditional approach.

Despite the hope of telehealth as a means of COPD patient care, the evidence base is still evolving, and best practices are not established at this time for COPD. We therefore need much more exploration.

This Article Collection provides a high-quality forum for interdisciplinary researchers to propose novel informatics methods for telehealth to improve patients' mode of visit and health conditions for patients with COPD. We welcome submissions across the evidence spectrum, ranging from studies of component technologies (e.g., sensors, algorithms, and software) to research articles, database articles, software articles, study protocols, reviews, matters arising, comments, etc.

This Collection welcomes submissions covering a range of related areas of telehealth, including but not limited to:
• Remote monitoring plus usual care versus usual care alone.
• Remote consultation plus usual care versus usual care alone (e.g., Face to face visit for a check-up in a health service with a health professional, or as reported by trialists).
• Remote monitoring or remote consultation versus usual care (e.g., where telehealthcare has replaced an element of usual face-to-face care).
• Telehealth interventions' long-term effects.
• Self-education/follow-up/behavioral intervention and compliance monitoring based on the telehealth system.
• The field of telerehabilitation: i) standardization of delivery platform; ii) tests performed remotely allowing for accurate exercise prescription; iii) post-exacerbation rehabilitation, etc.

Keywords:
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
• mHealth, Telehealth or Digital Health
• Internet based pulmonary rehabilitation
• Intelligent/personalized healthcare
• Remote monitoring and Interventions

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo desk assessment and peer-review as part of our standard editorial process. Guest Advisors for this collection will not be involved in peer-reviewing manuscripts unless they are an existing member of the Editorial Board. Please review the journal Aims and Scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submissions is 31 October 2023.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code KFSQK to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

View all papers in this article collection

Dove Medical Press is pleased to invite you to submit your research to an upcoming Article Collection on "Epidemiology, Etiology, and Demography of COPD: Who, When, and How?" in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This health condition is prevalent, underdiagnosed, preventable, and has a high economic burden worldwide. The prevalence of COPD varies by country, age, sex, and genetic susceptibility. The main risk factors for COPD include environmental factors such as indoor and outdoor air pollution, occupational exposure to dust and fumes, and tobacco smoking. In addition, passive smoking in early childhood and intrauterine exposure predispose individuals to develop COPD with age. Environmental risk factors differ in developing countries compared to industrialized countries. Endogenous risk factors for COPD include genetic predisposition (for example, among individuals with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency), sex and racial differences in susceptibility to COPD, and the presence of respiratory problems in childhood. The impact of these environmental and endogenous risk factors increases with co-existing and interacting multiple risk factors. Further, social determinants of health in childhood and adulthood and gaps in access to disease-related prevention and care in rural and some urban areas contribute to the development of COPD and adverse health outcomes.

Our understanding of the natural history of COPD has evolved over time, and more research is needed to fully appreciate and recognize the extent of and interaction among various sociodemographic, etiologic, and clinical factors that contribute to the onset and progression of COPD.

This Article Collection welcomes submissions of original research and systematic review papers, including but not limited to epidemiological, translational, and health outcomes research. We invite research exploring the natural history and epidemiology of COPD in various geographic locations around the globe, individual and combined risk factors, sex and racial differences in COPD presentation, and associations with social determinants of health.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisors for this collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 26 October 2023.

Please submit your manuscript on our website, quoting the promo code DZXFA to indicate that your submission is for consideration in this Article Collection.

Guest Advisors

Dr. Radmila Choate, University of Kentucky College of Public Health

[email protected]

Dr. Choate is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health. Her research interests include the epidemiology of COPD and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency-associated lung disease. Currently, her work focuses on associations between COPD and quality of life, aging, and cognitive and functional impairment.

Dr. Choate receives research support from AlphaNet and the COPD Foundation.

Dr. Kristen E. Holm, National Jewish Health

[email protected]

Dr. Holm is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at National Jewish Health. Her research interests include social and psychological factors that are associated with COPD outcomes, with a particular interest in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency-associated lung disease. She is also involved with evaluating behavioral interventions that aim to improve health outcomes for individuals with chronic health conditions.

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