The influence of coronary risk, health locus of control, anxiety and depression on compliance to exercise in cardiac rehabilitation

Abstract

The research in compliance to prescribed treatments and specifically in compliance to cardiac rehabilitation suggests that adherence rates are asssociated with multiple patient and treatment program characteristics. The present study was conducted to investigate the nature of the concurrent relationship between demographic, physiological, behavioral and psychological variables and early compliance to Phase II of cardiac rehabilitation. Data were collected from a sample (N = 87) of 74 men and 13 women, enrolled in 12 week, monitored exercise, cardiac rehabilitation prorams in five Texas cities. The data included demographic and physiological information and scores on the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control scale, the Self-Motivation Inventory and the Profile of Mood States. A level of coronary risk was calculated from criterion values of demographic, physiological and behavioral data. The significance of the relationship between rates of compliance and the independent variables, coronary risk level, self-motivation, internality of health locus of control, anxiety and depression was tested by mutliple regression analysis. The results indicate that there was no significant relationship between the concurrent influence of the independent variables and compliance for the first month, second month, third month and for all three months. The average overall compliance rate, percent of the possible exercise sessions attended, was 82%. A negatively accelerated curve of non-compliance was not observed. Based on the beta weights of the multiple regression equations, and post hoc step-wise multiple regression analysis, self-motivation was the only variable that significantly contributed to the prediction of compliance rates.