Background: More than 37 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with heart failure, which is a growing burden on the health sector. Cardiac rehabilitation aims to improve patients' recovery, functional capacity, psychosocial well-being, and health-related quality of life. However, cardiac rehabilitation programs have poor compliance and adherence. Telerehabilitation may be a solution to overcome some of these challenges to cardiac rehabilitation by making it more individualized. As part of the Future Patient Telerehabilitation program, a digital toolbox aimed at enabling patients with heart failure to monitor and evaluate their own current status has been developed and tested using data from a patient-reported outcome questionnaire that the patient filled in every alternate week for 1 year.
Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the changes in quality of life and well-being among patients with heart failure, who are participants in the Future Patient Telerehabilitation program over the course of 1 year.
Methods: In total, 140 patients were enrolled in the Future Patient Telerehabilitation program and randomized into either the telerehabilitation group (n=70) or the control group (n=70). Of the 70 patients in the telerehabilitation group, 56 (80.0%) answered the patient-reported outcome questionnaire and completed the program, and these 56 patients comprised the study population. The patient-reported outcomes consisted of three components: (1) questions regarding the patients' sleep patterns assessed using the Spiegel Sleep Questionnaire; (2) measurements of physical limitations, symptoms, self-efficacy, social interaction, and quality of life assessed using the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire in 10 dimensions; and (3) 5 additional questions regarding psychological well-being that were developed by the research group.
Results: The changes in scores during 1 year of the study were examined using 1-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. There were significant differences in the scores for most of the slopes of the scores from the dimensions of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (P<.05).
Conclusions: There was a significant increase in clinical and social well-being and quality of life during the 1-year period of participating in a telerehabilitation program. These results suggest that patient-reported outcome questionnaires may be used as a tool for patients in a telerehabilitation program that can both monitor and guide patients in mastering their own symptoms.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03388918; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03388918.
Keywords: Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire; adherence; cardiology; cardiomyopathy; compliance; heart; heart failure; monitoring; patient-reported outcome; patients; quality of life; rehabilitation; self-reporting; telehealth; telemonitoring.
©Cathrine Skov Schacksen, Anne-Kirstine Dyrvig, Nanna Celina Henneberg, Josefine Dam Gade, Helle Spindler, Jens Refsgaard, Malene Hollingdal, Lars Dittman, Kim Dremstrup, Birthe Dinesen. Originally published in JMIR Cardio (https://cardio.jmir.org), 02.07.2021.