The effects of physical exercise training and cardiac education on levels of anxiety and depression in the rehabilitation of coronary artery bypass graft patients.

Objective: to evaluate whether an exercise and education-based rehabilitation programme is sufficient treatment for individuals with clinically significant levels of anxiety or depression following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

Design: follow-up and repeated assessment after surgery.

Setting: outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programme.

Patients: all 88 attenders after CABG surgery.

Assessments: structured interview and Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale (using 8 as the cut-off) administered by rehabilitation nurses at start of course and HAD repeated at 12 weeks and 6 and 12 months (by post after discharge).

Results: return rates of 76 and 80% at 6- and 12-month assessments, respectively; statistically significant reductions in levels of anxiety and depression found between first and all subsequent assessments; subdividing into groups revealed significant reduction in anxiety and depression in the anxious and depressed groups at 12 weeks and 6 months, respectively, but at 12 months there was no significant reduction.

Conclusions: there is a need to address the problems of anxiety and depression directly by screening and treatment, and to provide more psychologically-orientated cardiac rehabilitation programmes.