Mobile Phone App Based or Face to Face Pulmonary Rehabilitation in COVID 19 Survivors

Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) is recommended as a standard, effective, and important treatment for COVID‑19 survivors who remain symptomatic after the acute phase. Therefore, we aimed to compare the effect of mobile phone‑based PR application with face‑to‑face PR on the quality of life, anxiety, depression, and daily life activities of COVID‑19 survivors.

A quasi‑experimental was conducted on 65 COVID‑19 survivors during 2022. Convenient sampling was done based on the inclusion criteria. The intervention group (n = 31) received PR through a mobile phone application, and the control group (n = 34) received face‑to‑face PR. Data were collected before and after the intervention in both groups using a demographic information questionnaire, SF‑12, the hospital anxiety and depression scale, and Barthel scale. For all tests, a maximum error of 5% was considered.

The two studied groups had no statistically significant difference with respect to all the investigated variables at baseline (p > 0.05). After the intervention, the mean anxiety and depression score of the patients in the control group was significantly lower than the intervention group (t = −3.46, f = 63, p = 0.01). After our intervention, there was no statistically significant difference in the mean quality of life and daily life activity scores between the two groups (t = −0.68, f = 63, p > 0.05).

The application of PR does not show a statistically significant difference in terms of improving the quality of life and daily activities compared with the face‑to‑face method; we suggest that the PR application be used as a cost‑effective method when face‑to‑face PR is not possible.