Haake, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-4449-6680, Johnson, T.W., Bourne, J. et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Parkrun as self-managed cardiac rehabilitation: secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey of parkrun in the UK. Open Heart, 10 (2). e002355. ISSN 2053-3624
Abstract
Objectives Cardiac rehabilitation following a cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related illness has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack and hospital admission. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 3–5 days per week of moderate to vigorous exercise. Despite this, only 38% of those eligible complete rehabilitation programmes. Parkrun organises free, weekly, timed, 5 km running or walking events. The aim of this study was to investigate whether parkrun can support self-managed cardiac rehabilitation.
Methods We undertook a secondary analysis of a survey of UK parkrunners, comparing responses of those reporting no health conditions (n=53 967) with those with one or more CVD-related conditions (n=404). Thematic analysis was used to analyse 53 open-ended text comments from the latter.
Results Four hundred and four respondents (0.7% of the total) reported CVD-related conditions with the largest proportions among those walking the event (24% of male participants and 5% of female participants). For those doing <3 days per week of physical activity at registration, 47% increased activity to ≥3 days per week. Among those with CVD-related conditions, participation in parkrun led to perceived improvements in fitness (81% of participants), physical health (80% or participants) and happiness (74% of participants). Two thirds reported improvements to their ability to manage their condition(s) and half to their lifestyle choices. Analysis of 53 open-text comments revealed that those with CVD-related conditions used parkrun to monitor their condition and were motivated by encouragement from the parkrun community. Enjoyment and fun were important for engagement, although some individuals were dispirited by poor performance due to their conditions.
Conclusions Individuals with CVD-related conditions used parkrun to self-manage their rehabilitation; this applied to those attending parkrun following disease onset as well as those engaged with parkrun prior to their condition. Parkrun, or events with similar characteristics, could support self-managed cardiac rehabilitation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. |
Keywords: | cardiac rehabilitation; coronary artery disease; delivery of health care; epidemiology; Humans; Male; Female; Cardiac Rehabilitation; Cross-Sectional Studies; Self-Management; Myocardial Infarction; United Kingdom |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Aug 2023 14:49 |
Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2023 14:49 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMJ |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1136/openhrt-2023-002355 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:202171 |