Background and Rational: To date, studies examining physical activity (PA) in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) patients have relied on self-reported PA, which is an inferior measure to objective ones (e.g., pedometers). The purpose of this study was to present preliminary pedometer data from the Social Ecological correlAtes duRing and after Cardiac ReHabilitation (SEARCH) trial and to determine whether demographic and/or medical variables influence PA levels.

Procedure: The SEARCH trial is recruiting patients from 12 CR programs across Atlantic Canada, however, only data from Nova Scotia is presented. Upon receiving ethical approval, the RA approached patients during their first PA session of the third week. If interested, they were consented and given a baseline survey to take home and bring back to their next session. Patients completed the same survey during the 2nd last week of their program and were fitted with a pedometer (Yamax DIGI-WALKER). They were asked to wear the pedometer from the time they woke up until the time they went to bed for 7 days and were given a PA log to record their daily steps. They returned the pedometer, PA log, and survey the following week.

Results: 120 patients in Nova Scotia have pedometer data. The average age was 62.00 (SD = 9.48), they went to school for approximately 13.84 years (SD = 3.13), their BMI was 29.83 (SD = 5.62), and the majority were male (75%), married (77.5%), white (97.5%), retired/unemployed (60%), and had an income > = $50,000 (61%). Patients averaged 8078.51 (SD = 3650.07) steps per day, however, only 27.5% of the sample met the 10,000 steps per day recommendation. Follow-up zero-order correlations showed that increased PA (i.e., steps per day) was significantly associated with being male (r = .29, p < .01), younger (r = -.31, p < .01), employed vs. unemployed (r = .26, p < .01), and being the 1st cardiac event for the patient vs. having a history (r = .30, p < .01). On the other hand, decreased PA was significantly associated with having arthritis (r = -.28, p < .01), angina (r = -.31, p < .01), depression (r = -.21, p < .05), and hip pain (r = -.27, p < .01).

Conclusion: In latter weeks of CR, it appears that the vast majority of patients are not meeting PA recommendations, which varies based on various demographic variables/medical conditions.