The effectiveness and efficacy of an intensive cardiac rehabilitation program in 24 sites.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to test the efficacy and effectiveness of an intensive cardiac rehabilitation program in improving health outcomes in multiple sites.

Methods: This study employs a nonexperimental (prospective time series) design to investigate changes in cardiovascular disease in 2974 men and women from 24 socioeconomically diverse sites who participated in an intensive cardiac rehabilitation program at baseline, 12 weeks, and 1 year. Paired t-tests were used to assess differences by comparing baseline values to those after 12 weeks, baseline values to those after 1 year, and values after 12 weeks to those after 1 year.

The contribution of changes in diet, exercise, and stress management to changes in coronary risk in women and men in the multisite cardiac lifestyle intervention program.

Background: The relative contribution of health behaviors to coronary risk factors in multicomponent secondary coronary heart disease (CHD) prevention programs is largely unknown.

Purpose: Our purpose is to evaluate the additive and interactive effects of 3-month changes in health behaviors (dietary fat intake, exercise, and stress management) on 3-month changes in coronary risk and psychosocial factors among 869 nonsmoking CHD patients (34% female) enrolled in the health insurance-based Multisite Cardiac Lifestyle Intervention Program.

Methods: Analyses of variance for repeated measures were used to analyze health behaviors, coronary risk factors, and psychosocial factors at baseline and 3 months.