Comparison Between Effects of Home Based Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs Versus Usual Care on the Patients’ Health Related Quality of Life After Coronary Artery Bypass Graft

BACKGROUND & AIM: To compare home-based cardiac rehabilitation with usual care on the patients’ Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) after coronary artery bypass graft in patients with coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

METHODS: In a randomized controlled clinical conducted from March 2013 to June 2013, 110 patients with CABG surgery were randomly assigned into two groups. While patients in group I, were received usual care and patients in group II, in addition to the usual care were received home-based cardiac rehabilitation programs. The 27-item MacNew Heart Disease HRQoL questionnaire was used to evaluate the patient’s HRQoL under and over 2 months after intervention.

RESULTS: At the time of 0, mean score of HRQoL was 67.86±7.5 and 64.76±8.4 in patients in group I and group II, respectively (P> 0.05). Although mean score of HRQoL in all patients in both groups increased two month after intervention, but this increase in patients in group II were higher than patients in group I (154.93±4.6 vs 134.20±8.2). This difference were statistically significant (P< 0.05).

CONCLUSION: Quality of Life (QoL) can be considered as a quality indicator of health care systems. Results of present study showed that home-based cardiac rehabilitation program improved patients HRQoL after CABG surgery.