Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Online Cardiac Rehabilitation Resource (www.svhhearthealth.com.au) in Improving Knowledge and Confidence for Patients With Newly Diagnosed Cardiac Conditions: A Pre-Experimental Pilot Study

Background Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an important tool for the secondary prevention of cardiac disease. Despite its proven effectiveness, CR remains vastly under-utilised especially amongst the most disadvantaged patients. As an adjunct to CR, the St Vincent’s Heart Health website (SVHHH) was created by the St Vincent’s Hospital CR team to provide information via simplified medical text, videos and animations. We evaluated the effectiveness of the website in educating patients about their heart condition. Methods Patients with a newly diagnosed cardiac condition were recruited from St Vincent’s Hospital inpatient wards and outpatient clinics (n = 67, age 63+/−11) and given 30 minutes to interact with our online resource. Using a pre-test post-test design we evaluated the success of the website in improving patients’ knowledge of their condition using a modified Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire and Patient Activation Questionnaire. Results After interacting with the website, participants rated a 50% improvement in the control they felt over their heart condition (p  Conclusions The St Vincent’s Heart Health website shows real promise as an educational tool for patients, as an adjunct to standard CR and for patients in remote settings. Online health resources will likely become an important adjunct to traditional teaching methods across all medical specialties to improve patient outcomes.