Effects of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with stable COPD: a Meta-analysis

Objective To investigate the efficacy and safety of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation on the improvement of quality of life in patients with COPD by Meta-analysis. Methods Randomized controlled tests (RCT) about the effectiveness of home-based pulmonary rehabilitation on quality of life in COPD patients were retrieved from electronic databases including PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, CBM, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Wanfang Database from their establishment to January 31th, 2016. According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, RCT screening, data extraction and quality assessment were conducted by two reviewers independently. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.1 software. Results A total of 14 RCT involving 495 COPD patients were included. The Meta-analysis showed that: the home-based pulmonary rehabilitation intervention could significantly improve the quality of life evaluated by Saint-George's Respiratory Questionnaire [MD=-10.54, 95% CI (-15.44, -5.64) ] (intervention for 12 weeks) and improve the exercise capacity (six minutes walking distance) [MD=45.85, 95% CI (26.98, 64.72) ]in COPD patients compared with the conventional treatment (P 0.05) . There were no statistically significant differences in the mortality rate [RR=1.28, 95%CI (0.41, 4.02) ]and the frequency of acute exacerbation [RR=1.34, 95% CI (0.60, 2.97) ]between the two groups (P>0.05) . Conclusions The home-based pulmonary rehabilitation is a safe and effective rehabilitation training form, which can effectively improve the quality of life and exercise capacity, reduce the degree of dyspnea in patients with stable COPD, but has no effects in the improvement of pulmonary function of stable COPD patients. Key words: Pulmonary disease, chronic obstructive; Rehabilitation; Meta-analysis