OBJECTIVES

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in Malaysia. Outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program(CRP) is a supervised six sessions program offered to patients with coronary heart disease in Hospital Serdang since 2007. It aims to restore patient’s function to normalcy of life. Exercise based CRP is a cost-effective secondary prevention for cardiac mortality and rehospitalisation. This study assess effectiveness of CRP in improving physical functional capacity by 6-minute walk test distance(6MWD). Association of erectile dysfunction severity and number of diseased vessels was evaluated.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort study conducted in the rehabilitation department of Hospital Serdang among 139 CRP graduates from January 2014 to December 2019. Student’s t-tests was done to compare pre and post CRP 6MWD. Logistic regression was done to check for association.

RESULTS

This study involved 139 participants (112 male, 27 female). The mean± SD of age and BMI were 52.93 ± 10.52 and 28.10 ± 4.98, respectively. Cardiology referral attributed to 77.7% of participants, and 61.9% participants had underwent percutaneous intervention. Family history of early CVD (70.5%) and dyslipidemia (76.3%) were main risk factors in this cohort. There is a positive correlation between pre and post CRP 6MWD{r(137)=0.661,p=0.000}, with improvement of mean 6MWD by 7% (394.29m to 421.95m). After completion of CRP, 50.4% showed an improvement of more than 30m in the 6MWT. 33.8% showed change of exercise habit post CRP. From 2017 to 2019, 56.5% (n=26) of the men answered the SHIM questionnaire. Erectile dysfunction, indicated by SHIM score did not show significant association with number of diseased coronary vessels (AOR 0.38, 95% CI 0.001-1.45, p=0.078).

CONCLUSIONS

Although the mean improvement in physical functional capacity was not marked, 50.4% showed meaningful improvement, indicating room for optimization of the program. Erectile dysfunction is still a screening predictor of CVD; despite weak association with number of diseased coronary vessels.