Effectiveness of a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program in Patients With Heart Failure

Summary

Heart failure is a devastating disease with great impact on the quality of life and survival of those who suffer from it. The disease has a high prevalence and its treatment represents high economic costs for health systems. In Colombia, cardiovascular diseases that are part of chronic noncommunicable diseases are the first cause of death. According to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2014, 28% of deaths in the country were due to cardiovascular diseases.

Pharmacological treatment, patient education and regular physical activity are the cornerstones for the treatment of heart failure and therefore the international clinical practice guidelines as well as the guide of the Colombian Ministry of Health recommend the performance of supervised physical exercise for patients with the disease. Cardiac rehabilitation programs using regular and supervised aerobic exercise positively impact the lives of these patients by improving functional capacity, quality of life, psychological well-being and can have an effect on important outcomes. such as hospitalizations and mortality.

The Health Rehabilitation Group has carried out several research projects on heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, and in agreement with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (COLCIENCIAS) developed the Clinical Practice Guide for the Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Heart Failure in population over 18 years of age classification B, C and D. The group's research has demonstrated the efficacy and safety of cardiac rehabilitation to improve functional capacity, abdominal perimeter and systemic blood pressure figures in patients with cardiovascular diseases, improvement in the quality of life in patients with heart failure and the prevalence of musculoskeletal diseases has even been described in this group of patients. In one of the studies, an exercise program was compared with an educational program and it was concluded that the exercise was effective in improving the health-related quality of life of patients with heart failure.

Despite the benefits demonstrated by the cardiac rehabilitation programs, the adherence to exercise of the patients is low, especially during phase III of the program in which patients exercise in an unsupervised manner with periodic care follow-up. In some studies they have carried out other types of follow-up such as telephone control, home visits and telemonitoring, but there are no studies that carry out a low-cost program, with telephone follow-up and distance education to improve adherence in the phase III of cardiac rehabilitation.

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of an education, follow-up and stimulus program of adherence to the achievements of phase III of the Rehabilitation Program in patients with heart failure, on functional capacity, quality of life, the need to return to phase II of the program and rehospitalizations.

Conditions

• Heart Failure

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Interdisciplinary educational program

Interdisciplinary educational component based on the Clinical Practice Guide for Heart Failure

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología (COLCIENCIAS)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Universidad de Antioquia

  collaborator OTHER

• Clinica Las Americas

  collaborator OTHER

• Grupo Rehabilitacion en Salud

  lead NETWORK

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-12-23

Primary Completion

2022-10-26

Completion

2023-05-15

Countries

• Colombia

Study Locations