Quality-of-life and functional outcomes in virtual vs traditional cardiac rehabilitation: A retrospective cohort study

Virtual cardiac rehabilitation (VCR) offers a potential strategy to expand access to cardiac rehabilitation and address participation barriers, including transportation, work obligations, and limited program availability. This retrospective cohort study compared quality-of-life, functional capacity, and other clinical outcomes between patients enrolled in VCR and traditional cardiac rehabilitation (TCR) at a single academic center between June 2022 and August 2024. Outcomes of interest included changes in Dartmouth COOP quality-of-life scores, metabolic equivalents (METs), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Rate Your Plate dietary scores, body mass index (BMI), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. A total of 171 patients (40 VCR, 131 TCR) were included. VCR participants demonstrated greater improvement in Dartmouth COOP scores (–5.13 ± 4.65 vs –3.20 ± 4.34; p