Cardiac rehabilitation programs are vital to recovery after a heart attack. They incorporate education, exercise and counselling to help those recovering from heart problems understand their condition, improve their physical fitness and manage their disease.
Explains Toronto Rehab Senior Scientist Dr. Sherry Grace, “Participating in a cardiac rehab program not only greatly reduces death and hospitalization but also helps improve quality of life. Unfortunately, many patients do not use these proven services, and women are much less likely than men to access and fully participate in these programs.”
To determine what factors might improve female cardiac rehabilitation attendance, Dr. Grace and her colleagues analysed women’s participation in mixed gender, women’s only or home-based cardiac rehabilitation programs at six cardiac rehabilitation facilities in Ontario.
After assessing the level of adherence to each program, the team discovered that participants attended less than half of the rehabilitation sessions prescribed to them, regardless of the type of program they attended. Women also appeared to have strong preferences for which model they preferred to attend.
“The results suggest that women should be encouraged to participate in cardiac rehab, offering them the program model of their choice,” says Dr. Liz Midence, lead author of the article. “We should inform women of the benefits of cardiac rehab and use all the tools at our disposal to promote their full participation.”
This work was supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario Grant-in-Aid #NA 6682.
Cardiac rehabilitation program adherence and functional capacity among women: a randomized controlled trial. Grace SL, Midence L, Oh P, Brister S, Chessex C, Stewart DE, Arthur HM. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2015 Dec 9. doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.10.021. [Pubmed abstract]