Physical activity in the morning and afternoon is lower in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with morning symptoms

BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) experience symptoms that vary over the day. Symptoms at the start of the day might influence physical activity during the rest of the day. Therefore, physical activity during the course of the day was studied in patients with low and high morning symptom scores. METHODS: This cross-sectional observational study included patients with moderate to very severe COPD. Morning symptoms were evaluated with the PRO-morning COPD Symptoms Questionnaire (range 0–60); the median score was used to create two groups (low and high morning symptom scores). Physical activity was examined with an accelerometer. Activity parameters during the night, morning, afternoon and evening were compared between patients with low and high morning symptom scores using independent t-tests or Mann-Whitney U tests. RESULTS: Seventy nine patients were included. Patients were aged (mean ± SD) 65.6 ± 8.8 years with a mean forced expiratory volume in 1 s of 55 ± 17%predicted. Patients with low morning symptom scores (score < 17.0) took more steps in the afternoon (p = 0.015) and morning (p = 0.030). There were no significant differences during the evening and night. CONCLUSION: Patients with high morning symptom scores took significantly fewer steps in the morning and afternoon than those with low morning symptom scores. Prospective studies are needed to prove causality between morning symptoms and physical activity during different parts of the day. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12931-018-0749-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.