Das „assessment of burden of COPD (ABC) tool“ in der hausärztlichen praxis ergebnisse einer machbarkeitsstudie

Background Many people around the world suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The Assessment of Burden of COPD (ABC) tool, which was originally designed in the Nether-lands, is an innovative software to support evidence-based treatment of COPD patients. It processes the patients’ self-re-ported information and medical parameters to visualize their in-tegrated health status by means of a clearly arranged balloon scheme. The tool forms the basis for shared decision making and should strengthen the patients’ health literacy and self-management. It remains unclear if the ABC tool is suitable for use in German family medicine. Methods The Dutch version of the ABC tool was translated into German and adapted to the German healthcare system. We tested a beta version of the tool in family medicine as part of the feasibility study. After consultations in which the ABC tool had been used, a process evaluation was conducted by guided interviews with the patients and family physicians. These interviews were evaluated using content analysis to derive core issues. Results Six interviews with family physicians and five interviews with patients were conducted and analyzed. Following core issues were discussed: handling, layout and design, the effect on the consul-tation and the treatment, costs and benefits, and development opportunities. Statements indicated that the tool could be inte-grated into the German family medicine system and that both, patients and family physicians could benefit from the tool. Conclusions The ABC tool seems, in principle, suitable for use in German family practices. Still, our results show some possible points of improvement. A next step before implementation would be a large study conducted in German primary care to analyze if the use of the tool leads to a clinically relevant improvement of COPD patients’ disease-specific quality of life.