Management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

The relevance of the study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can be explained by the persistence of unfavorable dynamics of the disease, even despite the achieved success in the pharmacotherapy of this pathology. In 2016, World Health Organization (WHO) ranked COPD as the third leading cause of death worldwide, far exceeding the experts’ predictions, who believed that such an increase in the death rate would occur by 2030. This study aimed to determine the level of senior medical students’ knowledge in the management of patients with COPD, based on the method of anonymous questioning. This research work describes the results of the second stage of the ASCO project (Assessment of Senior Medical Students in the Field of COPD) conducted in 2017-2019 among 338 senior medical students from six large cities of Russia and Ukraine. The survey revealed the average level of knowledge among senior medical students, based on the average level of correct answers (56.6%) obtained in the study. The best results were obtained for the questions about COPD risk factors, influenza vaccine prevention, and pneumococcal vaccine prevention in COPD patients. The worst results were recorded on the questions about the severity of COPD clinical symptoms, the choice of initial therapy for COPD with advanced symptoms, a high risk of exacerbations, and the moderate exacerbation of COPD. The obtained results indicated an insufficient level of students’ basic knowledge in questions regarding etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of COPD.