BACKGROUND
Cardiac telerehabilitation offers a flexible and accessible model for patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), effectively transforming the traditional cardiac rehabilitation (CR) approach.
OBJECTIVE
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of cardiac telerehabilitation.
METHODS
We searched randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in 7 electronic databases: PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and WANFANG. The primary outcome focused on cardiopulmonary fitness. For secondary outcomes, we examined cardiovascular risk factors (blood pressure, BMI, and serum lipids), psychological scales of depression and anxiety, quality of life (QoL), cardiac telerehabilitation adherence, and adverse events.
RESULTS
In total, 10 RCTs fulfilled the predefined criteria, which were reviewed in our meta-analysis. The results showed that after cardiac telerehabilitation, there was a significant difference in the improvement in long-term peak oxygen uptake compared to center-based CR (mean difference [MD] 1.61, 95% CI 0.38-2.85, <i>P</i>=.01), particularly after 6-month rehabilitation training (MD 1.87, 95% CI 0.34-3.39, <i>P</i>=.02). The pooled effect size of the meta-analysis indicated that there were no significant differences in the reduction in cardiovascular risk factor control. There was also no practical demonstration of anxiety scores or depression scores. However, cardiac telerehabilitation demonstrated an improvement in the long-term QoL of patients (MD 0.92, 95% CI 0.06-1.78, <i>P</i>=.04). In addition, the study reported a high completion rate (80%) for cardiac telerehabilitation interventions. The incidence of adverse events was also low during long-term follow-up.
CONCLUSIONS
Cardiac telerehabilitation proves to be more effective in improving cardiopulmonary fitness and QoL during the long-term follow-up for patients with CAD. Our study highlights monitoring-enabled and patient-centered telerehabilitation programs, which play a vital role in the recovery and development of CAD and in the long-term prognosis of patients.