The effect of an educational intervention on coronary artery bypass graft surgery patients' participation rate in cardiac rehabilitation programs: a controlled health care trial

A controlled prospective intervention trial. The control arm comprised 520 patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery between January 2004 and May 2005 in five medical centers across Israel. This group received no additional treatment beyond usual care. The intervention arm comprised 504 patients recruited from the same cardiothoracic departments between June 2005 and November 2006. This group received oral and written explanations about the advantages of participating in cardiac rehabilitation programs and a telephone call two weeks after hospital discharge intended to further encourage their enrollment. The medical staff attended a one-hour seminar on cardiac rehabilitation. In addition, it was recommended that referral to cardiac rehabilitation be added to the letter of discharge from the hospital. Both study groups were interviewed before surgery and one-year post surgery. A one-year post-operative interview assessed factors affecting patient attendance at cardiac rehabilitation programs, as well as the structure and content of the cardiac rehabilitation programs attended. Anthropometric parameters were measured at pre- and post-operative interviews;- and medical information was obtained from patient medical records. The effect of cardiac rehabilitation on one- and three-year mortality was assessed.We report a low cost yet comprehensive intervention designed to increase cardiac rehabilitation participation by raising both patient and medical staff awareness to the potential benefits of cardiac rehabilitation.ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00356863When we initiated this interventional study in 2004, the effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs for promoting health, psychological status and functioning; and for decreasing symptoms of angina pectoris and heart failure, in post-coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients had already been well established [1-5]. Though shown to be highly cost effective [6,7], CR programs reported low participat