Contemporary Management of Malnutrition in patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) presents significant clinical and economic burdens to both patients and healthcare systems globally. Physical and metabolic changes often result in unintentional weight loss and malnutrition, which are associated with poorer patient outcomes. Whilst inpatient settings may provide opportunities to identify and diagnose malnutrition, efforts to improve nutrition status are unlikely to yield meaningful long-term benefits if support is not continued post-discharge.  
 
This multi-phase project will utilise an Experience-Based, Co-Design approach to explore current nutrition care practices and experiences of COPD patients and healthcare providers involved in their care. Initial phases will identify and explore key barriers and enablers to best practice nutrition care, focussing on post-discharge and community settings. Subsequent project phases will utilise these results to develop, implement and evaluate a co-designed malnutrition model of care reform.   

Funding Body: This project is funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend.