Facilitating exercise habit formation among cardiac rehabilitation patients: A randomized controlled pilot trial

Abstract

Background: The importance of promoting exercise adherence among individuals with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is imperative. However, challenges in maintaining behavior among ACS patients are also well-documented. Emerging findings in the general population have supported the use of habit-formation techniques, which include incorporating routine consistency and cues, to be effective for facilitating exercise behavior. The effectiveness of habit formation ap-proaches, however, has not been tested on participants with ACS. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of facilitating physical activity habits among patients with ACS in a two-arm, parallel design, randomized controlled pilot trial. Methods: Participants (n = 13) were older adult patients (M age = 64.20, SD = 5.35) with ACS who were referred to a cardiac rehabilitation center. The experimental group attended monthly group meetings from months 1–3 and received phone call follow-ups from months 4–6. Conclusions: The experimental group showed an increase in weekly moderate-to-vigorous level physical activity, M = 228.20 mins (SD = 112.45), compared with the control group, M = 151.17 (SD = 112.22), d = 0.61. The experimental condition also showed greater use of routine consistency (experimental: M = 4.60 (SD = 0.548); control: M = 3.76 (SD = 1.62)) and cue usage (experimental: M = 3.60 (SD = 0.471); control: M= 2.60 (SD = 0.398)) over the control condition at the six-month mark. The study supports the effectiveness of habit-building techniques among patients with ACS, with effect sizes ranging from a medium to large magnitude. Findings from this pilot study support a full clinical trial with larger sample size.