TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘The illness isn’t the end of the road’—Patient perspectives on the initiation of and early participation in a multi-disease, community-based exercise programme
AU - Regan-Moriarty, Joanne
AU - Hardcastle, Sarah
AU - McCallion, Maire
AU - Youell, Azura
AU - Collery, Audrey
AU - McCarren, Andrew
AU - Moyna, Niall
AU - Kehoe, Brona
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Regan-Moriarty et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2024/3
Y1 - 2024/3
N2 - Background Exercise is the cornerstone of cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Hospital-based CR exercise programmes are a routine part of clinical care and are typically 6–12 weeks in duration. Following completion, physical activity levels of patients decline. Multi-disease, community-based exercise programmes (MCEP) are an efficient model that could play an important role in the long-term maintenance of positive health behaviours in individuals with cardiovascular disease (CVD) following their medically supervised programme. Aim To explore patients experiences of the initiation and early participation in a MCEP programme and the dimensions that facilitate and hinder physical activity engagement. Methods Individuals with established CVD who had completed hospital-based CR were referred to a MCEP. The programme consisted of twice weekly group exercise classes supervised by clinical exercise professionals. Those that completed (n = 31) an initial 10 weeks of the programme were invited to attend a focus group to discuss their experience. Focus groups were transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Twenty-four (63% male, 65.5±6.12yrs) patients attended one of four focus groups. The main themes identified were ‘Moving from fear to confidence’, ‘Drivers of engagement,’ and ‘Challenges to keeping it (exercise) up’. Conclusion Participation in a MCEP by individuals with CVD could be viewed as a double-edged sword. Whilst the programme clearly provided an important transition from the clinical to the community setting, there were signs it may breed dependency and not effectively promote independent exercise. Another novel finding was the use of social comparison that provided favourable valuations of performance and increased exercise confidence.
AB - Background Exercise is the cornerstone of cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Hospital-based CR exercise programmes are a routine part of clinical care and are typically 6–12 weeks in duration. Following completion, physical activity levels of patients decline. Multi-disease, community-based exercise programmes (MCEP) are an efficient model that could play an important role in the long-term maintenance of positive health behaviours in individuals with cardiovascular disease (CVD) following their medically supervised programme. Aim To explore patients experiences of the initiation and early participation in a MCEP programme and the dimensions that facilitate and hinder physical activity engagement. Methods Individuals with established CVD who had completed hospital-based CR were referred to a MCEP. The programme consisted of twice weekly group exercise classes supervised by clinical exercise professionals. Those that completed (n = 31) an initial 10 weeks of the programme were invited to attend a focus group to discuss their experience. Focus groups were transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Twenty-four (63% male, 65.5±6.12yrs) patients attended one of four focus groups. The main themes identified were ‘Moving from fear to confidence’, ‘Drivers of engagement,’ and ‘Challenges to keeping it (exercise) up’. Conclusion Participation in a MCEP by individuals with CVD could be viewed as a double-edged sword. Whilst the programme clearly provided an important transition from the clinical to the community setting, there were signs it may breed dependency and not effectively promote independent exercise. Another novel finding was the use of social comparison that provided favourable valuations of performance and increased exercise confidence.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188910976&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0291700
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0291700
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85188910976
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 19
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3 March
M1 - e0291700
ER -