Heart rehabilitation in patients awaiting open-heart surgery targeting complication prevention and quality of life improvement: preparation, initiation, and interim-results of the Heart-ROCQ study

For patients listed for open-heart surgery, avoiding postoperative adverse events and ensuring optimal recovery are the most important goals. Unfortunately, there is a risk that patients' mental and physical health will decline in the period before and immediately after cardiac surgery. Such declines can result in an increased risk of complications after surgery and is also associated with higher healthcare costs. To improve pre- and postoperative care, a newly developed multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation programme has been implemented. This so-called ‘Heart-ROCQ programme’ begins when patients are added to the waitlist and continues postoperatively. The intention of the Heart-ROCQ programme is to make the waiting time part of the treatment to improve the mental and physical state before surgery. In addition, the programme aims to optimise recovery after surgery, ensuring that patients can resume their activities of daily living soon after surgery.

This thesis of Johanneke Hartog presents the preparation, initiation, and interim results of the Heart-ROCQ PROBE study. This study is a comparison of the new pre- and postoperative cardiac rehabilitation programme with the standard care: a postoperative outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programme. This research demonstrated the feasibility and safety of cardiac rehabilitation before and immediately after cardiac surgery. This provides an important basis for continued research into the effectiveness and underlying working mechanisms of pre- and postoperative cardiac rehabilitation. The implementation of pre- and postoperative cardiac rehabilitation could potentially be an effective intervention in response to increasing healthcare demands and economic costs.