Adverse baseline physiological and psychosocial profiles of women enrolled in a cardiac rehabilitation clinical trial.

PURPOSE

Coronary heart disease (CHD) remains the leading cause of death in women. Despite positive outcomes associated with cardiac rehabilitation (CR), investigations of women are sparse. This article presents the baseline physiological and psychosocial profiles of 182 women in the Women's-Only Cardiac Rehabilitation study.

METHOD

Women were randomized to a women's-only motivational interviewing or traditional CR group. Physiological measures included lipid profiles, body mass index, functional capacity, and anthropomorphic measures. Psychosocial measures included optimism, hope, social support, anxiety, depression, quality of life, and health perceptions. The median age was used to split the sample to examine data on 92 younger (< or = 64 years) and 90 older (>64 years) women.

RESULTS

With a mean age of 63 years, 66.5% were white, 47% were retired, and 54% were married. Most women were physically inactive (83%), hypertensive (76%), and overweight (56%). Most women (71.4%) met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. Younger women demonstrated significantly worse psychosocial profiles than older women. More of the younger women (64%) had depressive symptoms than older women (37%). Younger women demonstrated a mean Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale score of 20.8 +/- 12.4, whereas older women had a substantially lower mean score of 14.9 +/- 9.5 (P < .001). Younger participants also reported significantly more anxiety than older participants (38.8 +/- 13.4 vs 32.8 +/- 10.6, P < .001).

CONCLUSION

Younger women enrolled in a CR clinical trial had adverse baseline risk factor profiles placing them at high risk for disease progression.