How is the organisational settings, content and availability of comprehensive multidisciplinary pulmonary rehabilitation for people with COPD in primary healthcare in Norway: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: To examine the organisational settings, content and availability of comprehensive multidisciplinary pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) programmes for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in primary healthcare in Norway.

Design: This was a cross-sectional survey study examining the content, organisational settings and availability of comprehensive multidisciplinary PR for people with COPD.

Setting And Participants: When the survey was conducted, Norway had 436 municipalities/primary healthcare services who were invited to participate.

Outcome Measures: The main outcome was the question related to accessibility to a PR programme in primary healthcare. We also examined in what degree the single interventions which are a part of a PR programme were one of the municipalities services and if there were regional differences regarding PR.

Results: Of the 436 municipalities, 158 answered the survey (36% response rate), and the survey covered for 45% of the total population in Norway. Five per cent of the responders reported having multidisciplinary PR for patients with COPD. The most frequently reported single interventions that can be a part of a multidisciplinary PR programme were reported as follows: group exercise training for all diagnoses (27%), reablement (25%) and home-care treatment by a physiotherapist and/or occupational therapist (24%). Southern-Eastern Norway had a significantly lower number of these interventions than Western Norway, Central Norway, and Northern Norway (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Only 5% of the Norwegian primary healthcare services (municipalities) had a multidisciplinary PR programme for patients with COPD. PR is the most important and cost-effective treatment within integrated care of patients with COPD. National strategies are therefore needed to increase the availability of PR for patients with COPD in Norwegian municipalities.