Effects of moderate intensity continuous training combined with emotional freedom techniques on fatigue in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A four-arm parallel randomized controlled trial

Fatigue is one of the most common and distressing symptoms in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study applied MICT, EFT and their combination (MICT and EFT) to COPD patients with fatigue through factorial design analysis method, aiming to explore non-drug management strategies that are more conducive to relieving fatigue in COPD patients. This study had a total of 112 participants. Patients were randomly divided into Control group, MICT group, EFT group and Combination group (MICT-plus-EFT group) by random number table method. The intervention duration was 8 weeks. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in fatigue scores, anxiety and depression scores, sleep quality scores, and 6MWT scores among the four groups at T₁, T₂, and T₃(P<0.05). The results of factorial analysis showed that there was no significant interaction between MICT and EFT on fatigue score, HADS score, PSQI score and 6WMT.The overall effect of the combined intervention was better than that of the single intervention, but the effect of the combined intervention may simply be the superposition of the effects of the two measures.