Introduction:

Diffuse interstitial lung disease is a group of diseases that cause a disorder of aerobic capacity and quality of life; in addition, they cause a high rate of morbidity and mortality for this population. The use of home oxygen therapy greater than 15 hours a day has benefits in chronic hypoxemic patients, however, little has been compared to patients who do not receive it.

Objective:

Describe the clinical characteristics, functional aerobic capacity and health-related quality of life of two groups of patients with diffuse interstitial lung disease, one with indication for home oxygen therapy and another group without indication.

Methods:

A cross-sectional descriptive study included 41 patients with diffuse interstitial lung disease who signed informed consent. In both groups, demographic and clinical characteristics, anxiety/depression, health quality of life related with the Saint George questionnaire, and functional aerobic capacity with the six-minute gait test were measured. The groups were compared with the student's t-test for independent samples.

Results:

The diffuse interstitial lung disease group with home oxygen therapy presented a higher percentage of smoking history (p = 0.041), a shorter distance walked in the six-minute gait test (304.1 ± 108.7 vs. 390.3 ± 95.6 p = 0.01), and a lower percentage of the predicted distance (58.37 ± 20.45 vs. 73.34 ± 22.90, p = 0.034) compared to the diffuse interstitial lung disease group without home oxygen therapy.

Conclusions:

Patients with diffuse interstitial lung disease with indication of home oxygen therapy have lower functional aerobic capacity compared to patients without indication.

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