Accurate Recognition of Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Focus group interviews will take place to discuss the key domains of COPD exacerbation which then will be used in the formation of the draft item set.

Items that form the draft item set will be subject to cognitive debriefing. Questions in the draft item set will collect information on whether the subjects with COPD have experienced that item during an exacerbation. Changes in this draft set will result in the formation of candidate item set.

Item reduction will be done using candidate item set and the subjects will be asked to respond to the candidate items on a 4-point scale in terms of how that item changed with the onset of the last episode. Item reduction will take into account frequency and magnitude of items, floor and ceiling items and consistency between regions. The candidate item set will then be used for generation of CERT.