The effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation program on cardiovascular stress indices in men and women with myocardial infarction: a randomised controlled clinical trial

Abstract

Background: cardiac rehabilitation is a structured program to prevent secondary cardiovascular diseases. Objective: to investigate and compare the effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation program (HBCRP) on improving cardiovascular stress indices in men and women who had experienced myocardial infarction (MI). Methods: in this randomized controlled clinical trial, 80 patients with MI were divided into two groups of intervention and control (n = 40 per group). Analyses were erformed separately in females and males in the both groups. The HBCRP included receiving routine medications along with walking for 8 weeks. The control group only received the routine care along with counseling about having adequate physical activity. Cardiovascular stress indicators including heart rate at rest (HRrest), maximum heart rate (HRmax), recovery heart rate (RHR)at 1 and 2 minutes after the exercise test (i.e. RHR1 and RHR2), systolic and diastolic blood pressures at rest (SBPR and DBPR), and rate pressure product (RPP) were measured by a researcher blinded to the intervention before and after the test. Results: the results showed significant reductions in RHR1 (p<0.001), RHR2 (p<0.01), SBPR (p<0.01), DBPR (p<0.01), and RPP (p<0.001) in both males and females in the intervention group. A significant increase was also observed in HRmax (p<0.001) in the intervention group. However, there were no significant differences in HRmax and other variables comparing per-and post-experiment values in the control group. Conclusion: our results showed that 8 weeks of HBCRP sex-independently reduced cardiovascular stress indices in both men and women with MI.