Analysis of the status of cardiac rehabilitation in Spain: an exploratory systematic review

Abstract

Little is known about the characteristics of the cardiac rehabilitation programs currently implemented in Spain, the aim was therefore to know more about the effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation in patients with ischemic heart disease in Spain, through an exploratory systematic review of the scientific literature on cardiac rehabilitation carried out in different databases from 2010 to 2018. We reviewed 35 articles whose objective was to measure the effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation programs from different perspectives. More than twice as many men as women participated and only 8.6% were clinical trials. The studies showed improvements in relation to mortality and physiological and quality of life variables, but with discrep-ant results in morbidity, moods, maintenance of long-term healthy habits and profitability of the programs.