[Introduction] Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is considered a standard care for patients with chronic respiratory disease such as COPD. It has been previously reported that PR programs in Euerope and North America were more popular and multidimentional compared with Japan (Kida K,et al, 1998). Recently comprehensive programs become popular in Japan; however, there have been no report on current PR programs in Japan. In order to clarify the current situation and problems of PR, we conducted a nationwide survey to characterize the current PR programs in Japan.

[Methods] A questionnaire survey was conducted at the teaching hospital of the Japanese Respiratory Society, and results are compared with the survey results in 2014.

[Results] In total, 194 institutions responded. PR was conducted in 142 of these institutions (85.6%). Inpatient PR programs were the most common form of program conducted. The content of the training was comprehensive, the main contents of the PR programs including, aerobic exercise, muscle strength/endurance training, ADL training and patient education. Only 19.9% of facilities had a maintenance program. Problems associated with PR programs included lack of staff and low medical fees for both implemented and non-implemented facilities.

[Conclusion] According to the present survey, we concluded that PR programs has been implemented as a comprehensive program in many teaching hospitals, mainly for inpatient. On the other hand, the lack of staff for implementing PR, low medical fees, and a lack of maintenance programs were raised as problems in implementation. There were no difference from the 2014 survey in terms of the number of facilities implementing PR and problems with PR.