Most heart attack survivors skip cardiac rehab
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Approximately two thirds of patients in the United States who survive a heart attack do not undergo outpatient cardiac rehabilitation, a program proven to reduce the risk of illness and death, and to also improve psychological recovery, according to findings reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
“Programs and policies directed at increasing the number of patients who are referred to and participate in cardiac rehabilitation need to be strengthened,” CDC researchers report in this week’s issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
“Future research should focus on identifying barriers to cardiac rehabilitation participation and interventions to improve referral and receipt of outpatient rehabilitation services,” they add.
To estimate the use of outpatient cardiac rehabilitation services among heart attack survivors, the CDC investigators analyzed data from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a state-based telephone survey of U.S. civilians age 18 or older.
The BRFSS includes data from 21 states and the District of Columbia. In the 2005 survey, 129,416 individuals responded to questions relating to heart attack and the use of cardiac rehabilitation.
Just 34.7 percent of heart attack survivors participated in outpatient cardiac rehab, which usually includes a number of interventions to address modifiable cardiac risk factors, as well as psychosocial counseling. The District of Columbia had the lowest usage rate at 22.6 percent, while Nebraska had the highest rate at 59.1 percent.
Patients who were more likely to participate in rehabilitation included men, those older than 49 years, Hispanics, married patients, college educated individuals, those with annual incomes of $15,000 or higher, and patients who lived in the middle of a metropolitan area. Employment status and health insurance coverage had no statistically significant effect on whether patients attended rehab.
SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, February 1, 2008.
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