Cardiac Rehabilitation Pays Off — A Meta-Analysis Confirms the Physical Gains

Cardiac rehabilitation programmes are recommended worldwide after coronary events, yet questions remain about the magnitude of their quality-of-life benefit and the time horizon over which it can be measured. This meta-analysis synthesised the available randomized controlled trial evidence to clarify the picture.

Comprehensive searches were conducted across MEDLINE, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and Web of Science. Two independent reviewers assessed studies for inclusion, applied the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool, and graded the quality of evidence using the GRADE system. Twelve studies of 2,260 patients (mean age 60.06 years) who participated in cardiac rehabilitation after a coronary event were synthesised. Generic measures included the SF-12, SF-36, EQ-5D, and GHQ; specific coronary heart disease PROMs were the MacNew and HeartQoL.

Meta-analysis demonstrated a positive effect of cardiac rehabilitation on the physical component of quality of life at six months (mean difference 7.02; p = 0.04). The mental component result was smaller and did not reach significance in the pooled analysis. The MacNew and HeartQoL provided the disease-specific complement to generic measures, ensuring that domain-level effects relevant to cardiac patients were captured throughout.

This meta-analysis adds rigorous evidence to the case for cardiac rehabilitation — and underscores how the MacNew remains a core element of the methodological toolkit for cardiac outcomes research. When systematic reviews include disease-specific PROMs alongside generic instruments, the resulting picture is much sharper than either could provide alone.

Reference:
Moreira, J., Bravo, J., Aguiar, P., Delgado, B., Raimundo, A., & Boto, P. (2024). Physical and Mental Components of Quality of Life after a Cardiac Rehabilitation Intervention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 13(18), 5576. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13185576