Effect of an Educational Intervention on Cardiac Patients' Participation Rate in Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs (MECRIS)

Sheba Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Coronary Artery Disease

Treatments: Behavioral: Increasing awareness to cardiac rehabilitation programs

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00356863

SHEBA-05-2374-RD-CTIL

Details and patient eligibility

About

The main aim of the study is to determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention designed to increase attendance of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) patients at Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) on actual CRP participation rate and; examine patient-related factors (demographic, health, psychosocial, awareness) influencing patients' attendance at CRPs. We hypothesized that the proportion of CABG patients participating in CRPs will increase significantly to 20-30% following the educational intervention employed.

Full description

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of disability and economic burden in western societies. Ample evidence exists to suggest that participation of these patients in structured Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) is beneficial in terms of improved prognosis and quality of life. Despite inclusion of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) in the Medical Insurance Basket (MIB) as a treatment for patients after an acute myocardial infarction (MI), for those after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), and more recently for patients suffering from congestive heart failure, only a small proportion (5%-7.5%) of patients take part in CRPs in Israel. Several factors have been identified as barriers to CRP in Israel, two of which are lack of patients motivation to participate in CRPs stemming, in part, from lack of awareness regarding the importance of CR and its availability and; Lack of motivation of medical staff to refer patients to CR resulting from a unawareness of the importance of CR and its availability across Israel, to name a few. The present study accords with such recommendations, by proposing a simple intervention designed to improve patients' and medical staff's awareness to the importance of CR participation. It is expected that CRP participation will significantly increase to 20-30% following the educational intervention employed.

This intervention will provide the basis for the implementation of an intervention to increase CRP participation in cardiac patients at a national level.

In addition to increasing the proportion of CABG patients attending at CRPs, the study aims to measure the effect of CRP participation on subsequent 1-year health and behavior related outcomes, and 3-year mortality. We expect to find differences in outcome measures between participating patients and those who do not.

Enrollment: 1,024 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients undergoing Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting with or without valve replacement

Exclusion criteria

• Institutionalized patients
• Patients with severe co-morbidities for whom cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is contra-indicated
• Patients who sustained a severe surgical complication preventing them from participating in CR (general stroke with severe disability)
• Patients residing farther than 30 km from a rehabilitation center

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,024 participants in 2 patient groups

Explanation on cardiac rehabilitation

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention: Increasing awareness to cardiac rehabilitation programs: Patients received a written and oral short explanation on the importance and benefits of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation, and information on available programs. They were telephoned 2 weeks after hospital discharge to encourage them to enroll at a cardiac rehabilitation program (CRP). In addition, physicians and nurses at the cardiothoracic units participated in a 1-hour seminar on CR. A recommendation to the general physician to refer the patient to CRP was added to the letter of discharge from hospital.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Increasing awareness to cardiac rehabilitation programs

Usual care with no intervention

No Intervention group

Description:

Patients recruited to the study received the usual care without any additional explanation on cardiac rehabilitation, and no effort to increase their awareness or the ward's awareness to cardiac rehabilitation was done.