Assessment of Symptoms in Patients with COPD: Strengths and Limitations of Clinical Scores

Purpose of Review: Health questionnaires are valuable tools to quantify, in an objective and standardized manner, the impact of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on the health status of patients and on their well-being, and to track changes over time.Therefore, filling out these questionnaires allows clinicians to obtain the necessary information that can be easily related to clinical outcomes. Recent Findings: Most importantly, symptoms’ assessment represents a very relevant part of these clinical tools when applied to patients suffering from chronic respiratory diseases. Comparing scores between visits is also indicative of the patient’s health status, as changes in quality of life are related to worse outcomes such as hospitalization and exacerbation. However, each respiratory questionnaire may be peculiar in catching specific aspects of a similar symptom (i.e., dyspnoea); therefore, different tools are not interchangeable or comparable.Summary: Detecting the minimal clinically important difference is a necessary evaluation procedure which affords the change inpatient’s management and directs the therapeutic action towards more active treatments.