Pressure injury flap surgery in people with spinal cord injury/disorder: surgical and rehabilitation outcomes.

Lung disease has a significant impact on various aspects of health, including reduced functional capacity and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), and psychological symptoms, such as anxiety, depression and stress. However, these latter symptoms are often under assessed and underdiagnosed, with the majority of existing studies focusing exclusively on psychological aspects of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Different studies have shown that psychological symptoms can have a detrimental effect on the disease management and relapse, rate of hospital readmissions and mortality, as well as on the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs influencing adherence, exercise and functional capacity, engagement and tolerance, as well as the management of other risk factors and the perception of disease symptoms. Other psychological factors that are known to have either positive or negative effects on the disease progression, management and the targeted rehabilitation are represented by coping strategies. Coping is defined as the set of (modifiable) thoughts and behaviors mobilized to manage internal and external stressful situations. It has been observed that those patients with COPD, pneumonia or asthma who use more active coping strategies, such as problem solving, have a better quality of life. In contrast, avoidance coping strategies have been associated with increased emotional distress in patients waiting for lung transplant for various lung diseases. Given the paucity of data about the role of psychological components in rehabilitation settings, we conducted a screening of anxious, depressive and stress symptoms, as well as coping strategies in a sample of patients undergoing a highly specialized respiratory rehabilitation program with the aim of: 1) assessing the prevalence of these psychological factors in this specific setting; 2) analyzing the correlations between these psychological factors and rehabilitation outcomes; 3) measuring the potential predictors of the rehabilitation pathway.