What are the determinants of change in walking fitness in patients with a history of depression following cardiac rehabilitation?

This study aims to investigate the demographic, clinical and service level factors determining change in walking fitness in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) patients with a history of depression following the CR programme. National Audit of Cardiac Rehabilitation (NACR) clinical data were used to identify 1476 patients with a history of depression who had their pre and post incremental shuttle walk test (ISWT) recorded between 1st Jan 2016 and 31st Jan 2020. A multiple linear regression was conducted to examine the determinants of change in walking fitness (m) following CR. Mean age was 61 (SD 10.45) and mean ISWT distance at baseline and outcome were 352.06m (SD 169.48) and 463.43m (SD 197.65), respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that change in walking distance reduced by 1.6m for each year increase in age at baseline (P 30 was associated with lower improvement (24.2m, p