Cardiac rehabilitation

#### The bottom line Cardiac rehabilitation is a complex intervention offered to patients diagnosed with heart disease, which includes components of health education, advice on cardiovascular risk reduction, physical activity and stress management. Evidence that cardiac rehabilitation reduces mortality, morbidity, unplanned hospital admissions in addition to improvements in exercise capacity, quality of life and psychological well-being is increasing, and it is now recommended in international guidelines.1 2 3 4 5 6 This review focuses on what cardiac rehabilitation is and the evidence of its benefit and effects on cardiovascular mortality, morbidity and quality of life. #### Sources and selection criteria RST is a member of the Cochrane Heart Group and has led and conducted several systematic reviews of cardiac rehabilitation. We searched the Cochrane database (www.cochrane.org) for cardiac rehabilitation and equivalent terms. We identified current national and international clinical guidelines based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We referred to the National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation annual report, which was led by PD, and the British Heart Foundation’s website for statistics on coronary heart disease in the UK. We also consulted recent review articles from the UK, US, Canada, and Australia. We have included topics that would be of interest to hospital doctors and …