Improving access to community-based pulmonary rehabilitation: 3R protocol for real-world settings with cost-benefit analysis

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) has demonstrated patients' physiological and psychosocial improvements, symptoms reduction and health-economic benefits whilst enhances the ability of the whole family to adjust to illness. However, PR remains highly inaccessible due to lack of awareness of its benefits, poor referral and availability mostly in hospitals. Novel models of PR delivery are needed to enhance its implementation while maintaining cost-efficiency. We aim to implement an innovative community-based PR programme and assess its cost-benefit.

Description

Funding: This work, was funded by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) - Comissão Diretiva do Programa Operacional Regional do Centro and by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT (SAICT-OL/23926/2016), and partially funded by Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (COMPETE), through COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016701 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007628) and FCT (UID/BIM/04501/2013 and UID/BIM/04501/2019). CJ has a post-doctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/115169/2016) funded by FCT, co-financed by the European Social Fund (POCH) and Portuguese national funds from MCTES (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior). None of the funders were involved in the design of the study and will not have any role during its execution, analyses, interpretation of data, or decision to submit results in the future.