Clinical validation of patient-centered outcomes measures in smokers with COPD

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is caused by cigarette smoking in most cases, and smoking cessation is the first-line treatment for slowing progression of the disease. Despite this, COPD patients have high rates of nicotine dependence, and nearly half of COPD patients continue to smoke following diagnosis. In order to address nicotine dependence in this population, clinicians need accurate and sensitive measurement tools that can be readily deployed in clinical practice. The proposed project will address this need by examining novel, rigorously developed patient-centered measures of nicotine dependence in relation to COPD-related symptoms, functioning and smoking relapse risk. These novel measures have been shown to be valid in daily and non-daily smokers but not in smokers with COPD. Thus, this project will extend our information about these measures to the COPD population. Findings of the proposed project will provide key information on measures to guide clinic-based assessment and treatment of nicotine dependence. As COPD patients face many demands in the context of managing chronic illness, it is important to tailor care to their treatment needs to minimize treatment burden. By identifying patient-centered measures that are most relevant to COPD functioning and predict risk of relapse, these measures may serve to selectively identify patients who need more intensive smoking cessation treatment. Results are expected to provide needed information on measurement of nicotine dependence in this clinical population, with implications for improving delivery of smoking cessation services and reducing illness burden and mortality among COPD patients.