Predictive questionnaires for risk of acute COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) exacerbations

COPD patients frequently suffer intermittent exacerbations of their disease characterised by acute deterioration of symptoms. Acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD) are associated with significant impairment of health status, use of health care resources, poor prognosis and increased mortality. The development of simple and practical predictive tools would help to identify COPD patients at greater risk of suffering exacerbations, which is important since those patients would need more intense and early treatment. This one-year prospective cohort non-drug study will evaluate several COPD-specific questionnaires as predictive tools and the presence of cardiovascular comorbidities as risk factors, for the composite events in study cohorts. The trial duration consists of a screening period (4-6 weeks) and a follow-up period (12 months), 4 visits in total along the study.