The General Practitioner and the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patient C. P. van Schayck, P. M. van Grunsven, C. van Weel, and G. van

A variety of clinical guidelines on the management of asthma has appeared over the last 10 years (1-6). For the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), guidelines have also been published (6-13). These COPD guidelines, however, were mainly drawn up by thoracic societies and are in some parts less relevant for patients with milder forms of COPD or those treated in primary health care. Therefore, we performed a literature review of all available published guidelines of the management of COPD (14). The aim of this chapter is to provide recommendations (evidence-based, where possible) to guide primary health care professionals in their management of adult patients with COPD.