Attendance at outpatient cardiac rehabilitation: is it enhanced by specialist nurse referral?

404 patients advised to attend cardiac rehabilitation (from a survey of 1933 patients aged 20 to 84 years discharged with coronary heart disease including acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina pectoris, congestive heart failure, ischaemic heart disease, CABG, and PCI), 70% male, 53% ≥65 years, from public hospitals in the Hunter region of New South Wales.

Recommendation by a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) nurse to attend CR

Recommendation by other health care providers (adjusted for strength of physician recommendation)

Self-reported attendance at one or more outpatient cardiac rehabilitation sessionspatient reported