Study design
COPD
COPD
This study adopted a quasi-experiment design (nonequivalent control group and non-synchronized, pretest–posttest design). Due to it is difficult to achieve double-blind intervention in this study, non-randomized controlled trials were selected. We used a convenient sampling method to select COPD patients in the outpatient and ward of the Department of Respiratory Medicine of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University and Haining People's Hospital. In order to better control the confounding variables, this study used a coin toss method for inpatients and outpatients. The patients in the first ward of respiratory medicine were taken as the experimental group, and the patients in the second ward of respiratory medicine were taken as the control group. The study was approved by the Institutional Research Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University and registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (ChiCTR2200060590). All participants provided written informed consent, and all ethical considerations were observed according to the Helsinki Declaration.