Demographic and psychological predictors of patient enrollment in cardiac rehabilitation programs.

摘要

The study examines predictors of cardiac patient enrollment in formal, outpatient, exercise based cardiac rehabilitation programs. Hypothesized predictors included demographic and life style variables of age-at-onset of the most recent cardiac event, gender, education, social isolation, smoking, body mass index, sedentary life style, occupation, commuting time to a cardiac rehabilitation program, depression, and the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) scales for exercise and weight. The participants were 85 volunteers from rural, Southeastern, Ohio and the more urban areas of Columbus, Ohio and Tucson, Arizona. The age of participants ranged from 23 to 89 with a mean age of 61. Modal diagnoses were coronary artery occlusion and myocardial infarct.;Participants were recruited from patients being discharged from hospital cardiac units as well as outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program referrals. Two hundred potential participants were contacted in person or by mail, 112 agreed to attempt the surveys and 85 ultimately completed a demographic questionnaire, the two URICA scales, and the Revised Beck Depression Inventory.;Crosstabulation procedures reveal no differences (.05 level) between cardiac rehabilitation program enrollees and non-enrollees except for marital status and the URICA exercise subscales of Preparation, and Action. Logistic regression is able to develop a prediction equation for cardiac rehabilitation program enrollment based on a constant and the two URICA exercise subscales. Intercorrelations among the URICA subscales suggest that neighboring subscales overlap and also correlate across the Stages-of-Change of the two scales for exercise and weight. Additional findings suggest that a cardiotoxic diet may help explain the cardiac burden carried by the Appalachian population.;Suggestions for future research include a recommendation for a prospective replication of the study. A second recommendation is for the further development of a cardiac rehabilitation scale to predict enrollment in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Finally, further exploration of the Appalachian diet is recommended.