Abstract Body: Introduction: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs collect cardiovascular health measures related to AHA core component recommendations for patient care and American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation certification. In secondary data analysis, we investigated sex differences in cardiovascular risk factors.
Hypothesis: Cardiovascular risk factors will be different by sex.
Methods: We obtained certification data [BMI, smoking status (Never, Former, Current), and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) score] as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD7) score and diet (Picture Your Plate) score for CR participants in 2023 from our hospital associated outpatient CR program. Since data did not have a normal or log-normal distribution, categorical analyses were completed. BMI (kg/m²) was categorized into Ideal (<25), Intermediate (25 to <30), Poor (≥30). PHQ9 and GAD7 were categorized as No, Minimal, or >Minimal Symptoms. Diet score categories were based upon published thresholds: Ideal (>60), Intermediate (51-60), Poor (<51). Descriptive statistics and standardized differences were computed.
Results: Of the 202 CR participants, 29% were female, 31% were <65 years old, 86% were White, and 25% had a qualifying event of NSTEMI. Heart failure was higher in females (17%) than males (10%). On average, participants completed 31(SD:5.5) sessions. The majority (60% to 99%) of participants with data at program entry and exit did not switch categories regardless of measurement. There were similar proportions of males and females with stable ideal (25% vs 21%) or intermediate (37% vs 36%) BMI; however, a higher proportion of females (36%) had stable poor BMI than males (27%) (Table 1). Higher proportions of males had no symptoms (PHQ9: 22%, GAD7: 48%) than females (9%, 28%) pre-CR (Table 2). Among those with pre-/post-CR PHQ9 (25% missing), we observed improvement in a higher proportion of females (38%) than males (30%). Although 13% of pre-CR diet scores were missing, we observed higher proportions of females with ideal and intermediate (64%, 30%) diet scores than males (58%, 25%) (Table 3). One participant quit smoking post-CR. Except BMI and smoking, missing data was a limitation of post-CR analyses.
Conclusions: Females gained greater mental health benefit from CR participation than males. Although exercise prescriptions are personalized, investigating the effect of sex-specific educational content is warranted given the differences we observed.