Cardiac rehabilitation referrals and assessments for patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention: A secondary analysis using routinely collected health data

Background: Cardiac rehabilitation is a structured secondary prevention program delivered in three phases that aims to improve health outcomes, quality of life, and economic benefits for people with cardiovascular disease.Despite its proven effectiveness, participation in Phase II cardiac rehabilitation remains low due to a range of individual, clinical, logistical, and health-system barriers.Aim: Our study aimed to identify contemporary trends and factors associated with cardiac rehabilitation referrals and assessments for patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention.Methods: We performed a secondary analysis using extracted data for all patients who underwent elective percutaneous coronary intervention between July 2014 and December 2021 among six public hospitals in Queensland, Australia.Results: Of 3081 patients, 1845 (59.9%) had cardiac rehabilitation referrals within 30 days of hospital discharge.Of the 1845 patients with a referral, 1022 (55.4%) underwent an initial assessment, and of those, 400 (39.1%) completed a final assessment.There was variation in the trends of referrals (declining from 69.7% to 57.1%), initial assessment (declining from 62.4% to 51.1%), and final assessment (increasing from 32.2% to 40.5%) across the study period.Those who stayed overnight were 10.2 times more likely to receive a referral than those who were