Second Nationwide Survey of Japanese Cardiac Rehabilitation Training Facilities During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak

Keisuke Kida; Miho Nishitani-Yokoyama; Yuji Kono; Kentaro Kamiya; Takuya Kishi; Koichi Node; Shigeru Makita; Yutaka Kimura; Shunichi Ishihara; Japanese Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation (JACR) Public Relations Committee

doi:10.1253/circrep.CR-22-0086

Second Nationwide Survey of Japanese Cardiac Rehabilitation Training Facilities During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outbreak

Circ Rep. 2022 Sep 10;4(10):469-473. doi: 10.1253/circrep.CR-22-0086. eCollection 2022 Oct 7.

Authors

Keisuke Kida¹, Miho Nishitani-Yokoyama², Yuji Kono³, Kentaro Kamiya⁴, Takuya Kishi⁵, Koichi Node⁶, Shigeru Makita⁷, Yutaka Kimura⁸, Shunichi Ishihara⁹; Japanese Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation (JACR) Public Relations Committee

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology, St. Marianna University School of Medicine Kawasaki Japan.
² Department of Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine Tokyo Japan.
³ Department of Rehabilitation, Fujita Health University Hospital Toyoake Japan.
⁴ Department of Rehabilitation, School of Allied Health Sciences, Kitasato University Sagamihara Japan.
⁵ Department of Graduate School of Medicine (Cardiology), International University of Health and Welfare Okawa Japan.
⁶ Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Saga University Saga Japan.
⁷ Department of Cardiac Rehabilitation, Saitama Medical University International Medical Center Hidaka Japan.
⁸ Department of Health Science, Kansai Medical University Hirakata Japan.
⁹ Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Bunkyo University Saitama Japan.

Abstract

Background: We previously reported the results of a questionnaire survey of 37 cardiac rehabilitation (CR) training facilities conducted during April 2020, in Japan. Methods and Results: We conducted a second questionnaire survey in 38 CR training facilities to explore the preventive measures against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) after a nationwide state of emergency was declared and to investigate differences between the 2 surveys. No significant differences were observed, except for the requirement for patients to wear surgical masks during CR (P=0.01) in the second survey. Thirty-four facilities (89%) continued CR with innovations, 61% revised their instruction manuals (vs. 46% in the first survey), and, in 39%, patients requested resumption of ambulatory CR and training videos. Conclusions: In the second survey, 74% of facilities were unable to continue conventional group ambulatory CR; however, patients maintained their physical activity and exercise regimens and managed their illnesses with the aid of telephones and mobile devices.

Keywords: Cardiac rehabilitation; Exercise testing; Patient requests; Questionnaire survey; Staff response.