Effects of the patient education strategy 'Learning and Coping' in cardiac rehabilitation on readmissions and mortality: a randomized controlled trial (LC-REHAB)

We assessed the effects of the patient education strategy 'Learning and Coping' (LC) in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) on mortality and readmissions by exploring results from the LC-REHAB trial.

In all, 825 patients with ischaemic heart disease or heart failure were randomized to the intervention arm (LC-CR) or the control arm (standard CR) at three hospitals in Denmark. LC-CR was situational and inductive, with experienced patients as co-educators supplemented with two individual interviews. Group-based training and education hours were the same in both arms.

Outcomes were time to death or readmission, length of stay and absolute number of deaths or readmissions. No between-arm differences were found in time to death, first readmission, or length of stay. Within 30 days after completion of CR, the absolute number of all-cause readmissions was 117 in the LC arm and 146 in the control arm, adjusted odds ratio 78 (95% CI: 0.61-1.01), P = 0.06. This trend diminished over time. Adding LC strategies to standard CR showed a short term but no significant long-term effect on mortality or readmissions. However, the study was not powered to detect differences in mortality and morbidity. Thus, a risk of overseeing a true effect was present.