Abstract

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a significant disease which affects the individual physically, emotionally, and socially and leads to an increase in the social support needs of the patients. The aim of this study is to determine the social support perceived by the patients and factors related to social support.

Material and Method: This study has been carried out among 135 patients with COPD. In the collection of data, “questionnaire form”, “social network list”, and “scale for perceived family support and friend support” have been used.

Results: Points for perceived family support have been found to be higher than perceived friend support. Social support points of the female patients, married patients, patients whose period of disease is longer than 10 years and patients who have been hospitalized twice or more have been found to be low. However, this result has not been evaluated as statistically significant. In addition to this, social support points of patients over 65 years old , patients with low education and patients who are not happy with their marriages have been found to be lower and this result has been found to be statistically significant.

Conclusion: There are important discrepancies between the family and friend support perceived by the patients with COPD, the individual number in the social network decreases, and social support for the patients is mostly provided by the family members.