Tailored Interventions to Increase Cardiac Rehabilitation Enrollment

Cardiac rehabilitation, an outpatient program that includes supervised exercise and cardiovascular risk factor education, is one of the most important therapies for patients with cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, very few Veterans with cardiovascular disease enroll in cardiac rehabilitation programs. This proposal will evaluate Veterans' individual barriers to attending cardiac rehabilitation with both surveys and interviews. Using this information, the investigators will develop a behavioral intervention to encourage Veterans to enroll in outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programs. This intervention will be individually tailored to Veterans with the information- motivation-behavioral skills model, a theory of behavior change. The investigators will test the tailored intervention with a proof-of-concept study in Veterans hospitalized with cardiovascular disease at the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System. This project is relevant to Veterans' health because increasing enrollment in cardiac rehabilitation will decrease mortality and increase quality of life in Veterans with cardiovascular disease.