Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1-2015

Journal

Patient Related Outcome Measures

Volume

6

Inclusive Pages

215-223

DOI

10.2147/PROM.S85779

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Millions of older adults who develop community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) each year survive, but there is a large knowledge gap on the burden of CAP and the recovery process in survivors from the patient perspective.

METHODS: The newly developed CAP Burden of Illness Questionnaire was administered through a Web survey to a nationwide sample of US adults aged ≥50 years who were recently diagnosed with CAP. Survey respondents with unresolved symptoms or other CAP-related health problems completed a second survey 30 days later; a third survey was completed another 30 days later by respondents with unresolved symptoms or problems. Nationally representative results describing the average time to recovery of symptoms and other CAP-related problems were achieved using post-stratification weights.

RESULTS: Five hundred participants completed the initial survey. The time to resolution for the CAP symptoms of weakness, shortness of breath, and tiredness exceeded 3 weeks on average. There was an average of 13 days of absenteeism, and 3 weeks (mean =21 days) before achieving full work/activity productivity after CAP. For participants with health conditions that worsened from pneumonia, chronic emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease took the longest to return to baseline (mean =60 and 52.4 days, respectively).

CONCLUSION: The results from this study demonstrate that older adults surviving a CAP episode experience a significant multi-symptom illness with long recovery periods to achieve pre-CAP health and productivity. These findings highlight the need for further research on effective clinician-patient communication, the need for patient-centered outcomes in clinical trials for CAP therapeutics, adequate home care during the recovery process, and the pursuit of CAP prevention strategies.

Comments

Reproduced with permission of Dovepress Ltd. Patient Related Outcome Measures.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Peer Reviewed

1

Open Access

1

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