Abstract
Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) make up a large proportion of hospital in-patients; they account for 12% of general medical admissions. Decisions to ventilate a patient with an exacerbation of COPD are partly based on the physician's prediction of future quality of life. In this systematic review, Pubmed, Medline, Embase, Biomed Central and the Cochrane library were electronically searched for observational and interventional studies of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with COPD, who were invasively ventilated, survived to hospital discharge and were followed up for HROoL measurements to be made. The results of the nine studies included showed that HROoL does deteriorate after invasive ventilation in intensive care, but is similar to that of patients who are on long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) or in pulmonary rehabilitation programmes. Despite the high long-term mortality of patients with COPD, the HROoL in patients who do survive is reasonable. Identifying these patients remains a significant challenge.