Background: New cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programmes, such as home programmes using the Heart Manual, are being introduced but little is known about patients' experiences of these.
Aims: To compare the views of patients who had completed a home or hospital-based CR programme and explore the benefits and problems of each programme.
Methods: 16 patients from 4 hospital programmes attended one of 3 focus groups; 10 home programme patients attended one of 2 focus groups.
Results: Some themes were common to all focus groups: loss of confidence; continuing to exercise and lifestyle changes; understanding of heart disease. Hospital programme patients particularly enjoyed exercising in a group and mixing with other people, and gained motivation and support from others. Home programme patients spoke very highly of the Heart Manual and valued the one-to-one support of the nurse facilitators. They described the home programme as a lifestyle change compared to the hospital programme which they suggested was more like a treatment.
Conclusions: Patients in the hospital programme enjoyed the camaraderie of group exercise and patients in the home programme valued the wealth of information and advice in the Heart Manual and this gave them a feeling of being in control of their health.