Assessment of Burden of COPD tool: evidence not perception

Abstract

We thank HOUBEN-WILKE et al. [1] for their comments on the Assessment of Burden of COPD (ABC) tool. They raised questions about the purpose of the ABC tool. The aims of ABC were clarified before its development, in the study protocol [2]. The ABC tool is multifaceted and was developed to measure burden of disease, facilitating shared decision making and formulation of a personal treatment plan [2-5]. All of these purposes relate to increasing self-management and stimulating behavioural change, which are, most often, important components of individual treatment plans. The goal of most treatment plans is to increase health status. Health status was therefore the primary outcome of our study [2-5]. We agree with HOUBEN-WILKE et al. [1] that comorbidities play a major role in the burden and management of COPD. Both in the study protocol [2] and the article describing the effectiveness study [5], we describe that comorbidity is part of this tool.