Why the study?
Telehealth-based cardiac rehabilitation offers an alternative during a pandemic, but its effect on quality of life, anxiety, depression, exercise safety, and disease awareness required evaluation.
Does a Cardiac Tele-Rehabilitation program improve quality of life and reduce anxiety and depression in low-risk cardiac patients?
Does a Cardiac Tele-Rehabilitation program improve quality of life and reduce anxiety and depression in low-risk cardiac patients?
A virtual cardiac tele-rehabilitation program implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic effectively improved quality of life and reduced anxiety and depression in low-risk cardiac patients.
Tele-rehabilitation may support CR continuity in pandemic settings; Level 5 pre-experimental data leaves efficacy and safety open for RCTs.
Objective: Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) programs based on telehealth are an alternative in the context of a pandemic and represent an opportunity to continue in the intervention of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The present study aims to evaluate the effect of a Cardiac Tele-Rehabilitation (CTR) program on quality of life, anxiety/depression index, exercise safety and Level Of disease awareness in patients discharged from a national referral institute in times of pandemic. Methods: A pre-experimental study in cardiac patients who entered the cardiac rehabilitation program at INCOR from August to December 2020. The study included low-risk patients who were administered a questionnaire (on cardiovascular disease, exercise safety, anxiety/depression, and quality of life) at the beginning and end of the program, which was applied through a virtual platform. Descriptive and comparative before-after analysis was used through hypothesis testing. Results: Sixty-four patients were included (71.9% male). The mean age was 63.6 ±11.1 years. Regarding exercise safety, an increase in the mean score was found after the application of the program (3.06 ± 0.8 to 3.18 ± 0.7, p=0.324). Concerning anxiety, the mean score was reduced from 8.61 to 4.75, while for depression, the reduction was from 7.27 to 2.92. Regarding the quality-of-life score, the global component improved from 111.48 to 127.92. Conclusions: The CTR program implemented through a virtual platform during the COVID-19 pandemic enhanced quality of life and decreased stress and depression in cardiac patients discharged from a national cardiovascular referral center.
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Pérez et al. (2023) studied this question.
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