Electronic Cardiac Rehabilitation (eCardiacRehab) Feasibility Study

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

eCardiacRehab: Interdisciplinary supervised home-based digital secondary prevention programme (12-week programme) based on the European Society of Cardiology guidelines for cardiac rehabilitation for patients after percutaneous coronary intervention.

Study summary

In Norway, more than 11,000 patients undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) annually. However, a very recent study utilizing registry data show a national average of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation of only 14%, despite its proven beneficial effects on readmissions, physical capacity, psychological distress, self-management, and quality of life. CR is strongly recommended in European guidelines. However, uptake is low and is not systematically identifying those in most need of CR. The primary objective of eCardiacRehab is to meet rehabilitation needs of large patient populations regardless of their access to traditional place-based rehabilitation by developing and evaluating the efficacy and cost effectiveness of an interdisciplinary and comprehensive home-based eCardiacRehab programme. eCardiacRehab address patient- and system level challenges in order to increase access to CR. The investigators give particular attention to older patients, women, and those with comorbidities or mental health challenges. Aspects related to continuity of care between specialist and primary care services, health literacy, adherence to treatment, cost effectiveness and ethics are investigated. The investigators will 1) continue to develop the programme with patients, general practitioners, healthcare experts from both specialist and primary care services, and technology developers, 2) develop treatment modules, 3) establish information and communication infrastructure, 4) evaluate the process and efficacy of treatment modules, 5) ensure knowledge development and transfer of competence to the municipalities, and 6) contribute to fulfil the innovation potential for health service and industry partners. eCardiacRehab has the potential to improve interaction and collaboration between primary and secondary care, modernise and digitalise work processes, and develop more coherent and tailored patient pathways. The vision of the home-based eCardiacRehab is to make CR available to all.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• The participants' engagement and adherence to the intervention — From start to the end of the programme (12 weeks)
  Based on previous studies, the success criteria will be one login to the website on average once per week, and that 50% of participants will watch some or all the video messages on the website. Usage will be assessed as time spent using the programme, number of logins with start and end time, summary of number of sessions, messages sent, modules completed, and registrations per patient, number of completed questionnaires per patient, and start and end time for all modules in the programme. This will be assessed based on website usage statistics gathered by a website visit tracking system. Further, participants will be asked to report login-errors.
• Missing rate — From start to end of programme (12 weeks)
  Acceptability of the secondary and primary outcomes is assessed through response and completion rates. The proportion of missing data in each completed questionnaire at baseline and at the end of the intervention of less than 20% is acceptable.
• Attrition rate — From start to the end of programme (12 weeks)
  A success criterion to reduce the threats to validity is an attrition rate of no more than 20%. When possible, the reasons for participants leaving the study are obtained and reported in a study log.

Trial sites (1)

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