Medication adherence, biological and lifestyle risk factors in patients with myocardial infarction: a ten-year follow-up on socially differentiated cardiac rehabilitation

AbstractObjective: There is strong evidence that medication adherence and lifestyle changes are essential in patients undergoing secondary cardiovascular disease prevention. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) increases medication adherence and improves lifestyle changes. Patients with cardiac diseases and a low educational level and patients with little social support are less responsive to improve medication adherence and to adapt lifestyle changes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the long-term effects of a socially differentiated CR intervention on medication adherence as well as changes in biological and lifestyle risk factors at two- five- and ten-year follow-up.Design: A prospective cohort study.Setting: The cardiac ward at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.Intervention: A socially differentiated CR intervention in addition to the standard CR program.Subjects: Patients admitted with first-episode myocardial infarction between 2000 and 2004, N = 379. Patients were defined as socially vulner...