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Experts call COPD a ’global epidemic’

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, July 8, 2005

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By the year 2020, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will be the third-largest killer of people throughout the world, according the "The Global Burden of Disease Study" published by the World Bank and the World Health Organization. The disease-which affects approximately 16 million Americans-occurs most commonly in cigarette smokers. Other risk factors such as pollution and occupational conditions (e.g., exposure to certain chemicals) can also lead to the disease. COPD progressively worsens, and as time goes on, the sufferer's airway narrows, which obstructs airflow, decreases pulmonary elastic coil, and traps air and gases in the lungs, causing dyspnea, cough, sputum, and possible wheezing to occur. To combat this deadly disease, a recent review of COPD literature by the Journal of Nursing Scholarship concluded that nurse educators must help nurses control the COPD "pandemic" by teaching them to act proactively by promoting healthy lifestyle choices to healthy people. The review suggests nurses learn prevention and smoking-cessation techniques to better assist their patients and help prevent COPD.

Click here to visit the American Lung Association's COPD Center and for more information about COPD.

Source: Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing

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