Heart disease is one of the most common causes of premature death and ill health. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) aims to restore people with heart disease to health through a combination of exercise with education and psychological support. Traditionally centre-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes (e.g. either based within a hospital, gymnasium or a sport centre setting) are offered to individuals after cardiac events, while home-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes have been introduced in an attempt to widen access and participation. The aim of this review has been to determine the effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes compared with supervised centre-based cardiac rehabilitation.
The study population in the trials were mainly male with a mean age of 52-69 years. Study findings indicate that both home and hospital-based interventions are similar in their benefits on risk factors, health-related quality of life, death, clinical events and costs. There was some weak evidence to suggest that home-based interventions were associated with a higher level of adherence.
The limitations of the review are that the recruitment of the included trials was limited to stable coronary heart disease patients either following an acute-MI or revascularization, but no other cardiac populations, such as heart failure. There has been considerable diversity in the variety of centre-based and home-based cardiac rehabilitation interventions.
Related reviews, including four other Cochrane reviews, can be looked at for a fuller picture of a broader review and more conclusions about cardiac rehabilitation and the effectiveness of its specific contributant interventions and in CHD and heart failure populations.