Sex and Gender-Based Differences in Outcomes of Cardiac Rehabilitation Following Acute Myocardial Infarction

This literature review summarizes recent interventions to enhance cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation, enrollment, and completion among women and their impact on CR outcomes.

Despite well-documented benefits of CR, CR remains underutilized nationally and globally, more so among women than men. Barriers to CR participation reported by women have not changed significantly over time. Recent approaches to improving women's enrollment, adherence, and completion have included home-based CR and telerehabilitation, incorporation of more diverse exercise modalities, and women-focused or women-only CR programming. Despite some encouraging results, most approaches have shown only modest benefits, and study interpretation is often limited by small study sizes, a lack of randomization, and highly selected samples. CR remains underutilized among women, contributing to poor health outcomes. Novel approaches to CR show promise, but further research is necessary to evaluate their impact on cardiovascular events, physiologic outcomes, and quality of life.