Background: Physical activity reduces the risk of acquired cardiovascular disease, which is of great importance in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). There are diverging data whether physical activity level (PAL) differs between patients with CHD and controls. Furthermore, it is unknown if PAL can be reliably assessed in patients with CHD using self-reported instruments.

Methods: Seventy-five patients with CHD (mean age 37.5 ± 15.5 years, women n = 29 [38.7%]) and 42 age and sex matched controls completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and carried the activity monitor Actiheart over 4 days. Time spent at ≥3 METS ≥21.4 min/day, i.e. reaching the WHO recommendation for PAL to promote health, was used as the outcome measure. Data on PAL obtained from IPAQ were compared with Actiheart.

Results: The proportion of individuals reaching target PAL according to IPAQ was similar in patients with CHD and controls (70.7%vs.76.2%, p = 0.52) as well as between patients with simple and complex lesions. There was an overall difference between IPAQ and Actiheart in detecting recommended PAL (72.6%vs.51.3%, p b 0.001). In a subgroup analysis, this difference was also detected in patients but was borderline for controls. The negative predictive value for IPAQ in detecting insufficient PAL was higher in patients than in controls (73%vs.40%).

Conclusions: The proportion of persons reaching sufficient PAL to promote health was similar in patients and controls. The self-reported instrument overestimated PAL in relation to objective measurements. However, with a high negative predictive value, IPAQ is a potentially useful tool for detecting patients with insufficient PAL.

Objective: Evaluate the feasibility of the COPD Web and its study design and study procedures and to increase the understanding of the potential effect of the tool in order to provide guidance for a future large scale trial.

Design: Parallel-group controlled pragmatic pilot trial.

Subjects: There was a total of 83 patients with COPD (mean age 70 +/- 8 years with a forced expiratory volume in first second percent predicted of 60 +/- 17%). The intervention group (n = 43) was introduced to and had access to the COPD Web in addition to usual care, while the control group (n = 40) received usual care alone.

Main outcome measures: The feasibility of the COPD Web (i.e., if and how the COPD Web was used) was automatically collected through the website, while outcomes on health, conceptual knowledge, and physical activity (PA) were collected through questionnaires at baseline, 3 months and 12 months.

Results: At 3 months, 77% of the intervention group was considered users, and the majority of time spent on the site was related to PA and exercises and was spent during the first month (>80%). In addition, the intervention group reported increased PA (odds ratio [OR] = 4.4, P < .001), increased conceptual knowledge in five domains (OR = 2.6-4.2, all P < .05), and altered disease management strategies (e.g., increased PA) (OR >= 2.7 P < .05) in comparison to the control group. The latter was also different between groups at 12 months (OR = 3.7, P = .044). Knowledge of PA was correlated with level of PA (rho = .425-.512, P < .05) as well as to the use of PA as a strategy to manage their disease (chi(2) = 11.2-32.9, P < .05).

Conclusion: Giving patients with COPD access to the COPD Web in addition to their ordinary primary care might be an effective shorter term (3 month) strategy to promote self-management. However, these results needs to be confirmed in a definitive large-scale trial.

Background: Physical activity improves health, exercise tolerance and quality of life in adults with congenital heart disease (CHD), and exercise training is in most patients a high-benefit low risk intervention. However, factors that influence the confidence to perform exercise training, i.e. exercise self-efficacy (ESE), in CHD patients are virtually unknown. We aimed to identify factors related to low ESE in adults with CHD, and potential strategies for being physically active.

Methods: Seventy-nine adults with CHD; 38 with simple lesions (16 women) and 41 with complex lesions (17 women) with mean age 36.7 ± 14.6 years and 42 matched controls were recruited. All participants completed questionnaires on ESE and quality of life, carried an activity monitor (Actiheart) during four consecutive days and performed muscle endurance tests.

Results: ESE in patients was categorised into low, based on the lowest quartile within controls, (≤ 29 points, n = 34) and high (> 29 points, n = 45). Patients with low ESE were older (42.9 ± 15.1 vs. 32.0 ± 12.4 years, p = 0.001), had more complex lesions (65% vs. 42%, p = 0.05) more often had New York Heart Association functional class III (24% vs. 4%, p = 0.01) and performed fewer shoulder flexions (32.5 ± 15.5 vs. 47.7 ± 25.0, p = 0.001) compared with those with high ESE. In a logistic multivariate model age (OR; 1.06, 95% CI 1.02-1.10), and number of shoulder flexions (OR; 0.96, 95% CI 0.93-0.99) were associated with ESE.

Conclusion: In this study we show that many adults with CHD have low ESE. Age is an important predictor of low ESE and should, therefore, be considered in counselling patients with CHD. In addition, muscle endurance training may improve ESE, and thus enhance the potential for being physically active in this population.

Objective: The beneficial effects of exercise training in acquired heart failure and coronary artery disease are well known and have been implemented in current treatment guidelines. Knowledge on appropriate exercise training regimes for adults with congenital heart disease is limited, thus further studies are needed. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of home‐based interval exercise training on maximal endurance capacity and peak exercise capacity.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Twenty‐six adults with complex congenital heart disease were recruited from specialized units for adult congenital heart disease. Patients were randomized to either an intervention group—12 weeks of home‐based interval exercise training on a cycle ergometer (n = 16), or a control group (n = 10). The latter was instructed to maintain their habitual physical activities. An incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test and a constant work rate cardiopulmonary exercise test at 75% of peak workload were performed preintervention and postintervention.

Results: Twenty‐three patients completed the protocol and were followed (intervention n = 13, control n = 10). Postintervention exercise time at constant work rate cardiopulmonary exercise test increased in the intervention group compared to controls (median[range] 12[–4 to 52]min vs 0[–4 to 5]min, P = .001). At incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test, peak VO₂ increased 15% within the intervention group (P = .019) compared to 2% within the control group (P = .8). However, in comparison between the groups no difference was found (285[–200 to 535] ml/min vs 17[–380 to 306] ml/min, P = .10). In addition, peak workload at incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test increased in the intervention group compared to controls (20[–10 to 70]W vs 0[–20 to 15]W, P = .003).

Conclusion: Home‐based interval exercise training increased endurance capacity and peak exercise capacity in adults with complex congenital heart disease. Aerobic endurance might be more relevant than peak oxygen uptake with regard to daily activities, and therefore a more clinically relevant measure to evaluate.

Background: Pulmonary rehabilitation aims to support self-management strategies and behaviour change in patients with COPD, which requires an interaction between the patients and healthcare professionals.

Aim: The aim was to explore how patients with COPD interact with primary care, and how they experience this interaction.

Methods: The study was conducted in primary care in northern Sweden. Interviews were performed with patients with COPD (n=13) with varied disease severity, symptoms, sex and age, from four primary care centres. The interviews were analysed with grounded theory.

Results: The analysis ended up in a process of becoming a more active patient with COPD, moving back and forth between different stages of interaction with primary care. The category building self-esteem with empowering support comprises factors that facilitated this process, such as having a positive spirit, experiences of availability, continuity and regular contacts in primary care, along with a good support where the patients felt respected.

The simultaneous and conflicting category struggling with the stigma and threat of COPD captures factors inhibiting the process such as the patients’ fear of dyspnea and death, along with feelings of shame and guilt, the low status of COPD and disempowering support from primary care.

Conclusions: The interaction with primary care could be seen as an ongoing, flexible empowering process for patients with COPD, affected by both inhibiting and facilitating factors. These results could help primary care to empower patients with COPD and facilitate their social process of becoming more active and in control of their disease by using the facilitating factors and decreasing the inhibiting factors.

Background: Many telehealth (TH) systems have been designed to identify signs of COPD exacerbations, but few previous studies have reported the nature of recorded lung function data and what variations to expect in stable versus unstable patients.

Aims: To evaluate the nature of individual diurnal, day-to-day and long-term variation in important prognostic markers of COPD exacerbations in a heterogeneous patient group by employing a newly developed TH system.

Methods: Eight women and five men with COPD performed measurements (FEV1, IC, SpO2 and CAT) three times per week during 4-6 months using the TH system. Feasibility was based on the repeatability and quality of the FEV1 and IC measurements, as defined by ERS/ATS guidelines. Short-term and long-term individual variations were assessed using the relative density and mean (SD) respectively.

Results: Close to 1100 FEV1 and IC measurements respectively were performed during a total of 240 patient weeks. The 2SD ranges for intra-individual variation were ± 210 mL and ± 350 mL for FEV1 and IC respectively. The values both increased and decreased without corresponding influence on symptoms (CAT) or SpO2 and no exacerbation was reported. However, it was unusual with a decrease of more than 50 mL per measurement in FEV1 between three consecutive measurement days.

Conclusions: This study reveals important and, to our knowledge, previously not reported information about short and long-term variability in lung function measurements in stable patients with COPD, of significance when defining criteria for detecting exacerbations with TH systems.

Background: New strategies are urgently needed to support self-management for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in primary care. The use of electronic health (eHealth) solutions is promising. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how such eHealth tools should be designed in order to be perceived as relevant and useful and meet the needs and expectations of the health professionals as well as people with COPD and their relatives.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the aspects of an eHealth tool design and content that make it relevant and useful for supporting COPD-related self-management strategies from the perspective of health care professionals, people with COPD and their relatives, and external researchers.

Methods: Data were collected during the development of an eHealth tool. A cocreation process was carried out with participants from two primary care units in northern Sweden and external researchers. Individual interviews were performed with health care professionals (n=13) as well as people with COPD (n=6) and their relatives (n=2), and focus group discussions (n=9) were held with all groups of participants. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The overarching theme, reinforcing existing support structures, reflects participant views that the eHealth tool needs to be directly applicable and create a sense of commitment in users. Moreover, participants felt that the tool needs to fit with existing routines and contexts and preferably should not challenge existing hierarchies between health care professionals and people with COPD. Important content for health care professionals and people with COPD included knowledge about self-management strategies. Videos were regarded as the most effective method for communicating such knowledge.

Conclusions: The cocreation in the development process enables participant perspectives and priorities to be built into the eHealth tool. This is assumed to contribute to a tool that is useful and relevant and, therefore, adopted into clinical practice and everyday life. Findings from this study can inform the development of eHealth tools for people with COPD in other contexts, as well as the development of eHealth tools for self-management support of other chronic diseases.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a public health problem. Interprofessional collaboration and health promotion interventions such as exercise training, education, and behaviour change are cost effective, have a good effect on health status, and are recommended in COPD treatment guidelines. There is a gap between the guidelines and the healthcare available to people with COPD. The aim of this study was to increase the understanding of what shapes the provision of primary care services to people with COPD and what healthcare is offered to them from the perspective of healthcare professionals and managers.

Methods: The study was conducted in primary care in a Swedish county council during January to June 2015. A qualitatively driven mixed methods design was applied. Qualitative and quantitative findings were merged into a joint analysis. Interviews for the qualitative component were performed with healthcare professionals (n = 14) from two primary care centres and analysed with qualitative content analysis. Two questionnaires were used for the quantitative component; one was answered by senior managers or COPD nurses at primary care centres (n = 26) in the county council and the other was answered by healthcare professionals (n = 18) at two primary care centres. The questionnaire data were analysed with descriptive statistics.

Results: The analysis gave rise to the overarching theme building COPD care on shaky ground. This represents professionals driven to build a supportive COPD care on 'shaky' organisational ground in a fragmented and non-compliant healthcare organisation. The shaky ground is further represented by uninformed patients with a complex disease, which is surrounded with shame. The professionals are autonomous and pragmatic, used to taking responsibility for their work, and with limited involvement of the management. They wish to provide high quality COPD care with interprofessional collaboration, but they lack competence and are hindered by inadequate routines and lack of resources.

Conclusions: There is a gap between COPD treatment guidelines and the healthcare that is provided in primary care. To facilitate implementation of the guidelines several actions are needed, such as further training for professionals, additional resources, and improved organisational structure for interprofessional collaboration and patient education.

Background: Many adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) have reduced aerobic exercise capacity and impaired muscle function. However, it is largely unknown which factors have influence on the confidence to perform exercise training, i.e. Exercise Self-Efficacy (ESE).

Aims: To identify factors related to low ESE, and thus identify potential targets for rehabilitation and thereby enhance the potential for being physically active.

Methods: Seventy-nine adults with CHD; simple lesions n=38 (women n=16), complex lesions n=41 (women n=17) (mean age 36.7±14.6 years) and 42 age and sex matched controls were recruited. All participants completed questionnaires on ESE, quality of life (EQ-5D), and physical activity (international physical activity questionnaire, IPAQ), and performed muscle endurance tests.

Results: ESE was categorised into low (<26 points, n=24) and high (≥26 points, n=55). Patients with low ESE were older (45.2±15.4 vs. 32.6±12.5 years, p=0.002), more often had prescribed medication (67% vs. 44%, p=0.06), higher New York Heart Association functional class (NYHA) (≥ III) (25% vs. 7%, p=0.03) and performed fewer shoulder flexions (30.9±16.1 vs. 45.9±23.9, p=0.01) compared with those with high ESE. In the high ESE group, ESE did not differ from controls (33.8±3.9 vs. 33.4±6.1, p=0.74). In linear multivariate analysis age (B;-0.18, 95% CI -0.28- -0.08), smoking (B;-3.73, 95% CI -7.17- -0.28), EQ-5Dindex <1 (B;-3.33, 95% CI -6.08- -0.57) and number of shoulder flexions (B; 0.09, 95% CI 0.03–0.16) were independently associated with ESE.

Conclusion: Many adults with CHD have low ESE. Rehabilitation targeting quality of life, smoking cessation and muscle training may improve ESE, and thus enhance the potential for being physically active in this population.

Introduction: The use of adequate self-management strategies for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) reduces healthcare use, improves health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and recovery after acute exacerbations. However, not many people with COPD receive support that promotes the use of such strategies and therefore new methods to facilitate and promote the use of self-management strategies are highly warranted. This pilot trial aims to evaluate the feasibility of the study design and study procedures considering effectiveness of the novel intervention, the COPD-web.

Methods and analysis: The overall design is a pragmatic controlled pilot trial with preassessments and postassessments and a parallel process evaluation. Patients with the diagnosis of COPD will be eligible for the study. The intervention group will be recruited when visiting one of the six participating primary care units in Sweden. The control group will be identified from the unit's computerised registers. The intervention, the COPD-web, is an interactive web page with two sections; one directed at people with COPD and one at healthcare professionals. The sections aim to support patients' self-management skills—and to facilitate the provision of support for self-management strategies, respectively. Effectiveness with regard to patients' symptoms, HRQoL, knowledge of and readiness for COPD-related self-management, health literacy, self-efficacy for physical activity and time spent in physical activity and time being sedentary, and further, healthcare professionals' knowledge of and readiness to support COPD-related self-management strategies will be assessed using questionnaires at 3 and 12 months. The process evaluation will include observations and interviews.

Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been obtained. Findings will be presented at conferences, submitted for publication in peer-reviewed publications and presented to the involved healthcare professionals, patients and to patient organisations.

Trial registration number: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02696187