Relationship between physical and psychosocial factors and attendance at cardiac rehabilitation

Purpose: To examine the relationship between physical and psychosocial factors and attendance at out-patient cardiac rehabilitation classes.Methods: Patients offered hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation at a single regional cardiac centre between 2007 and 2009 were invited to complete a postal survey. The study questionnaire comprised of three data collection instruments (1) The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire, a 9-item scale used to assess patient beliefs; (2) the Friendship scale, a 6-item scale used to assess social isolation and loneliness and (3) the York Cardiac Beliefs questionnaire, a 22-item scale to assess cardiac misconceptions. Additional information including age, gender, distance from CR centre, marital status and education was collected. A total of 270 eligible patients were issued with a questionnaire.Results: 128 (47.4%) questionnaires were returned. Attendees had lower mean illness perception scores (mean 26.9, CI 24.1-29.7) than non attendees (mean 32.5, CI 27.3-37.6). This difference was found to be statistically significant (t = -2.05, p = 0.042). Non-attendees were significantly more likely to attribute the cause of their disease to non-modifiable risk factors (genetics, age, gender) (t = -2.28, p = 0.026). No significant differences were found between groups in respect to distance from CR, car ownership, age and gender. Similarly, no differences were found in cardiac belief or friendship score between attendees and non-attendees.Conclusion: In this study illness perceptions were related to attendance at CR. Cardiac belief scores were not significantly different between groups, implying that CR may not have rectified cardiac misconceptions in attendees. Attendance status and distance from CR did not have a significant relationship; however this differed from previous study findings. This may be of particular relevance to centres which serve rural populations, and may therefore merit further investigation