Does the mode of delivery in Cardiac Rehabilitation determine the extent of psychosocial health outcomes?

BACKGROUND: Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) is a multicomponent tailored intervention aiming to reduce lifestyle risk factors and promote health in patients post cardiovascular disease. CR is delivered either as supervised or facilitated self-delivered yet little evidence exists evaluating the association between mode of delivery and outcomes. METHODS: This observational study used data routinely collected from the National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation from April 2012-March 2016. The analysis compared the populations receiving supervised and facilitated self-delivered modes for differences in baseline demographics, four psychosocial health measures pre and post CR and changes in anxiety, depression and quality of life following the intervention. The analysis also modelled the relationship between mode and outcomes, accounting for covariates such as age, gender, duration and staffing. RESULTS: The study contained 120,927 patients (age 65, 26.5 female) with 82.2% supervised and 17.8% self-delivered. The analysis showed greater proportion of females, employed and older patients in the self-delivered group. Following CR, patients in both groups demonstrated positive changes which were of comparable size. The regression model showed no significant association between mode of delivery and outcome in all four psychosocial outcomes when accounting for covariates (p-value>0.0.5). CONCLUSIONS: Patients benefited from attending both modes of CR showing improved psychosocial health outcomes with 3-76% change from baseline. Over half of CR programmes in the UK do not provide self-delivered CR yet this mode is known to reach older patients, female and employed patients. Facilitated self-delivered CR should be offered and supported as a genuine option, alongside supervised CR, by clinical teams.