Rehabilitation and work reintegration postmyocardial infarction

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate in a pilot study some psychosocial impacts of a mult idisciplinary rehabilitation program on work reintegration of postmyocardia l infarction (MI) patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two groups of 19 workers among public and governmenta l enterprises of the greater Quebec city area admitted to hospital for unco mplicated MI where recruited fur the study. One group received multidiscipl inary cardiac rehabilitation intervention and a structured return to work p rogram. The second group received the usual care post MI (no or ganized reh abilitation program). Over a period of 15 months, the following variables w ere measured: patients' perception of their loss of autonomy, and loss of c apacity to manage their emotions, physical work capacity and their capacity to meet work requirements. The impact of the intervention on convalescence time and patient's stability at work were also evaluated. RESULTS: The rehabilitation group showed a better development than the usua l care group of capacity to manage emotions (P = 0.004) and of capacity to return to work (P = 0.006). Furthermore, the patients in the intervention g roup reintegrated their work environment following a convalescence of 84.32 +/-35.39 days compared with 151.39+/-75.53 days for the usual care patients (P=0.0007). CONCLUSION: A multidisciplinary rehabilitation program and a structured ret urn to work program are beneficial for socio-vocational reintegration of po st-MI patients.