Wijkstra 1994.
| Study characteristics | ||
| Methods | RCT; follow‐up 12 weeks; control group: no treatment | |
| Participants | Randomised: 45 Completed: 43; I: 28, C: 15 Mean age I: 64 years, C: 62 years Sex (% male): I: 82, C: 93 Inclusion criteria: diagnosis of COPD with FEV₁ % < 60%, FEV₁/IVC < 50% Exclusion criteria: evidence of ischaemic heart disease, intermittent claudication, musculoskeletal disorder, other disabling disease that could restrict the rehab programme |
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| Interventions | Comprehensive rehabilitation programme at home ‐ Patients were supervised by a multi‐disciplinary team: pulmonologist, physiotherapist, nurse, GP ‐ Patients visited physiotherapist twice a week for 12 weeks and programme consisted of conventional physiotherapy, upper limb training, inspiratory muscle training, exercise training. Patients had to practice twice a day for a half hour at home ‐ Furthermore, they received education at home from a nurse (once a month) ‐ They visited the GP once a month, who supervised clinical status and maintenance treatment Intervention duration: 3 months Disciplines involved: GP, physiotherapist, nurse |
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| Outcomes | Lung function, CRQ, cycle ergometer test | |
| Notes | Dominant component: exercise | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | Quote: "patients were stratified for their FEV₁ % predicted. After this stratification, the patients were randomly allocated" |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Low risk | Quote: "(after randomisation), they were randomly allocated to one of three groups, each of 15 patients" |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | High risk | Comment: p articipants and treating therapists not likely to have been blinded to group allocation |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | Unclear risk | Comment: w e could not ascertain how and whether outcome assessors were blinded to treatment group assignment |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Comment: o nly 2 (out of 30) dropouts in rehabilitation group vs no dropouts in control group |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | Comment: a ll outcomes reported |