Cardiac Rehabilitation and Psychosocial Gender Differences

Tertiary prevention comprising treatment, care and rehabilitation of patients with heart disease is an important task for nurses and other health care professionals. This is achieved through a combination of medico-physical and psychosocial interventions, related to the male or female patient's personal, expressed problems and the personnel's knowledge. Therefore, the aim of this literature study was to highlight the comprehensiveness of the cardiac rehabilitation concept from a Nordic perspective and with focus on psychosocial gender differences. The Nordic examples of cardiac rehabilitation programmes, involving a multidisciplinary team and comprising health education, physical exercise and stress management, include no specific efforts for women. However, the efficacy of out-patient programmes is still poorly documented and there is a need to increase the attendance of eligible patients, particularly women, in these programmes. There are differences between the genders concerning the need for support from personnel and laymen in order to better reach patient's compliance. Taking the psychosocial characteristics specific to women into account, could be the first step towards increased attendance rates for women as well as reaching the proximal and distal targets with regards to cardiac rehabilitation.