The Effects of a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program on Health Behavior Compliance, Cardiovascular Function, and Quality of Life for the Patients with Ischemic Heart Disease

Jo, Hyun Sook; Kim, Kwang Joo

Abstract

This study is aimed at developing a cardiac rehabilitation program and enlightening the effects of the program on patient's health behavior compliance, cardiovascular functional capacity, and quality of life. Using a quasi-experimental approach the nonequivalent control group pretest - posttest design was accepted for this study. The subjects of this study consisted of 55 patients with ischemic heart disease at the Cardiac Center of 'G' Hospital located in Inchon from May 1, 1998 to April 30, 1999. The patients were divided into two groups: the experimental group, which participated in the cardiac program with 30 patients and 25 patients of a control group were not involved in the program. There were two phases in the cardiac rehabilitation program: the first phase was a team approach education. It focused on reducing the risk of ischemic heart problems. The second phase was individual training by using a home based exercise program, which was comprised of 8 weeks, three sessions per week, 40-60 minutes per session, and followed by consultation. Every session involved 20-40 minutes of aerobic exercise at 40-60% of heart rate reserve, 11~13 RPE and 10 minutes of warm-up and 10 minutes of cool-down exercises. The experimental tools for the study were the health behavior compliance scale developed by Lee, Yoon-hee (1992), and quality of life scale developed by McGirr et al.(1990). RPPsubmax were measured by the treadmill. The collected data was processed by SPSS and analyzed by X2test and t-test. The results of this study were as follows: 1. The health behavior compliance in experimental group was significantly increased (t=5.091, p=.000) when compared to the control group. 2. RPPsubmax also decreased significantly in the experimental group when compared to the control group(t=-2.109, p=.040). 3. The quality of life significantly improved in the experimental group (t=3.853, p=.000) as compared to the control group. As the above results of this study revealed, the effectiveness of the cardiac rehabilitation program of the study was confirmed. It increased the health behavior compliance for reducing the risk of further coronary events, enhanced the cardiovascular functional capacity, and eventually improved the patient's quality of life.