Background: Even though treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has improved, COPD exacerbation-related complications remain challenging. One related factor is substance use/abuse .Generally there is a rising concern about COPD with substance use to decrease the burden on health care because of substance use associated complications We, therefor aimed to asses the secondary morbidity, frequency of exacerbation and the need for Mechanical ventilation related to substance misuse in chronic obstructive lung disease patients .
Methods and Material: This is cohort population –based study on 50 acute exacerbated COPD patients who were admitted to intensive care unit of Chest department, Zagazig University Hospitals during the period from February 2021to march 2022.After taking an informed consent from them they were classified into two groups Drug abusers group and non drug abusers group
Results: : In between drug abusers group, opioids were the most prevalent misused substance (63%)). Also, there was statistical significance difference between both patients groups as regards frequency of exacerbation, drug abusers significantly associated with higher rate of exacerbation, higher type II respiratory failure and higher rate of need for MV
Conclusions:Diagnosis of substance misuse was associated with increased risk of respiratory failure, increased frequency of exacerbation and the need for mechanical ventilation .