E-coaching: New future for cardiac rehabilitation? A systematic review

To provide an evidence-based overview of the effectiveness of e-coaching as a cardiac rehabilitation program (CRP).

Pubmed, Embase, PEDro and CINAHL were searched to identify relevant RCTs. The e-coaching programs were divided into basic or complex depending on their content. Two reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality and extracted the data. A best-evidence synthesis was used to summarize the results.

19 RCTs were included. Detailed descriptions of the e-coaching programs were lacking. Complex e-coaching was more effective than usual-care for physical capacity (moderate evidence for short-, and mid-term; strong evidence for long-term), for clinical status (limited evidence for short- and mid-term; moderate evidence for the long-term), and for psychosocial health (moderate evidence for short-term; strong evidence for mid-, and long-term). For basic e-coaching only limited or no evidence for effectiveness was found.

Promising results were found for the effectiveness of complex e-coaching as a CRP to improve a patients' physical capacity, clinical status and psychosocial health.

The content of the e-coaching programs were not clearly described. This makes it difficult to identify which components of e-coaching are most effective and should be further developed to deliver the most optimal care for cardiac rehabilitation patients.