Strong Religion Helps Cardiac Rehab Patients in Recovery

At times of dire health, patients often turn to God for spiritual support. Apparently, that's a good idea according to results of a pilot study on 21 cardiac rehabilitation patients (11 men, 10 women) averaging 61 years of age from Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health System. It found that patients with strong religious beliefs had greater confidence to perform physical tasks during rehab, and ultimately saw greater perceptions of physical abilities during the 12-week program.

Dr. Timothy McConnell, director of cardiac rehabilitation and faculty development at Geisinger -- which provides health care services to 2.5-million patients in 38 primarily rural counties of Pennsylvania -- led a team of researchers on the study. He was joined by Charles Laubach, the former chair of the department of cardiology at Geisinger who is now associate medical director of the Geisinger Health Plan; as well as Chris Boyatzis, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa.; and Bucknell psychology students Laura Baldwin and Kelly McConnell. They authored a paper titled "Spiritual And Religious Associations With Quality of Life And Self-Efficacy For the Elderly Patient in Cardiac Rehabilitation," which was published by The Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, as well as The American Journal of Geriatric Cardiology -- both professional journals. Dr. McConnell is presenting this research at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, September 25-29, in Charlotte N.C.

The researchers arranged the subjects by age to determine associations regarding spirituality and religiosity -- a person's religious practice vs. their spiritual beliefs -- and then administered four questionnaires that measured the following:

* Religiosity Measure * Spiritual and Religious Concerns* Quality of Life* Self-Efficacy (confidence to perform physical tasks)

At the start of the cardiac rehabilitation program, age was significantly related with ritual religion -- the way a person goes about practicing their religion, like prayer, going to church, etc. -- and overall religiosity, emotional quality of life, and self-efficacy. But regardless of age, the researchers found that ritual and overall religiosity were related to a patient's self-efficacy at the start of the program, and ultimately their improvement through its duration -- although there were no significant relationships with quality of life.

"It appeared that it (strong religion helping their rehab) was a trend across the decades. So you could say that people who were more religious had greater faith and confidence in what they wanted to do (in cardiac rehab)," says Dr. McConnell. "Greater religiosity improved their confidence the most from the beginning of the program until the end. Since there's usually a direct relationship between confidence level and what you are willing to undertake (during rehab), it (stronger religious faith) appeared to help them recover better.

"From this small cohort, it appears that age is positively related with religiosity and spiritual concerns that may impact self-efficacy and quality of life -- particularly emotional. A larger cohort analysis needs to be performed to determine whether religiosity and spirituality have age-disparate impacts on outcomes after cardiac rehabilitation, and whether the enhanced religiosity improves coping with heart disease."

According to McConnell, a larger study -- with a target of 100 cardiac rehabilitation patients looking at long-term (five-year) outcomes in first-time heart attack and bypass patients -- is presently underway. It is being funded by the administrative council for research at Geisinger's Weis Center for Research.

McConnell was also invited to make a presentation at next week's conference titled "Prescribing Exercise for Cardiac Patients Without an Available Stress Test," based on research he had published previously in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation. He's previously presented that research to The American Heart Association.

"People have moved away from exercise stress tests in cardiac rehab, and Geisinger is one of first places to do that. We found rehab could be done safely and effectively without a stress test, which still is still a useful tool in certain facets of treating the heart," he says.