BACKGROUND: Counselling is considered to be a promising approach to increasing physical activity (PA) in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aim of the current study was to investigate whether a PA counselling program for people with COPD, when embedded in a comprehensive outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) program, increased their daily PA. METHODS: A two-armed, single blind randomized controlled trial was conducted as a component of a 12-week outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program. The participants randomized into the intervention group received five counselling sessions, based on the principles of motivational interviewing (MI), with a physiotherapist. The participants' steps per day and other proxies of PA were measured using an accelerometer (SenseWear Pro) at baseline, at the end of the PR program, and three months later. The group-by-time interaction effect was analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 43 participants,17 were allocated to the intervention group and 26 to the usual-care control group (mean age 67.9 +/- 7.9; 21 (49%) males; mean FEV1 predicted 47.1 +/- 18.6). No difference between groups was found for any measure of PA at any point in time. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, counselling, based on MI, when embedded in a comprehensive PR program for people with COPD, showed no short-term or long-term effects on PA behavior. To investigate this potentially effective counselling intervention and to analyze the best method, timing and tailoring of an intervention embedded in a comprehensive outpatient PR program, further adequately powered research is needed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02455206 (05/21/2015), Swiss National Trails Portal SNCTP000001426 (05/21/2015).

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