Assessment of public awareness on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Athens, Greece, and the effects of an awareness-raising national action plan

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) lacks public recognition despite its high prevalence. Given the absence of an awareness assessing disease-specific questionnaire, we developed the 10-item Athens COPD awareness questionnaire (10-ACAQ, with 4 demographic and 6 COPD-oriented questions) in an attempt to assess the level of public awareness on COPD in 2002. Then, a 6-year action plan (2003 to 2008) was designed to raise public awareness, which consisted of publishing relevant articles in newspapers/magazines, interviews/presentations in TV/radio, talking to public and educating primary care physicians. With the use of 10-ACAQ, we evaluated the impact of our action plan on raising public awareness during the World COPD days of 2005, 2007 and 2008. In 2002, 228 subjects completed the 10-ACAQ. 47% had heard about the disease but only 13% was really aware of COPD. In 2005, 2007 and 2008, the 10-ACAQ was administered to 298, 239 and 258 citizens respectively. The level of public knowledge on COPD increased significantly from 13% (2002) to 29, 45 and 55% respectively (p<0.001). In conclusion, substantial improvement in public awareness level on COPD has been accomplished through a continuum of activities targeting mass media and primary care physicians. The 10-ACAQ appears to be an easy-to-use and valid questionnaire to evaluate public knowledge on COPD.   Key words: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), public awareness, COPD awareness questionnaire.