Relationship Between Health-Related Quality of Life and Exercise Tolerance Improvement in Remote Cardiac Rehabilitation: Sub-Analysis of RecRCR Study

Background: Remote cardiac rehabilitation (RCR) is emerging alternative to outpatient rehabilitation. However, evidence related to its effect on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is limited. Methods: This is a sub-analysis of the RecRCR study, a multi-center, nonrandomized trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of RCR with real-time telemonitoring in patients with CVD, after discharge. The Short-Form Health Survey-8 was employed to evaluate the HRQOL before and 2–3 months after RCR. Based on the improvement of exercise tolerance, the patients were divided into I group (>10% improvement) and NI group (≤10% improvement). Results: Of 57 patients who completed RCR, 31 patients were included for analysis of HRQOL, including 15 (I group) and 16 patients (NI group). The physical (PCS) (45.5 ± 8.0 to 52.5 ± 4.0, p < 0.001) and mental (MCS) component scores (47.5 ± 7.9 to 51.0 ± 5.6, p = 0.005) improved significantly in all populations following RCR. The PCS improved significantly in the I and NI groups, respectively. By contrast, only in the I group, the MCS improved. However, the change in PCS or MCS was not significantly different between the two groups. The increases of MCS significantly associated with days from admission to the beginning of RCR (rs = −0.51, p = 0.007). Conclusions: In multifaced contents of HRQOL, the scores in PCS or MCS changed differently from the change in exercise capacity.