Social Physique Anxiety Impacts Outcomes During Cardiac Rehabilitation

Abstract

Social Physique Anxiety (SPA) represents the anxiety people experience when having their physique evaluated. Subsequently, SPA may impact individual's willingness to exercise in group settings resulting in decreased compliance, self-confidence and exercise training outcomes. Moreover, SPA may have an impact in clinical exercise programs. Greater SPA may decrease traditional outcome responsiveness during cardiac rehabilitation such as BMI, caloric expenditure, quality of life (QOL), and self efficacy (SE). PURPOSE To determine whether SPA influenced cardiac rehabilitation outcomes. METHODS The relationship between SPA and number of classes attended, BMI, caloric expenditure during exercise training, QOL and SE was determined. Forty-four cardiac patients (11 women and 33 men) with a mean age of 63±12.1 years who completed 12 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation were included. RESULTS Results of a correlational analysis are depicted below: CONCLUSION Although SPA did not influence attendance, SPA was directly related to BMI and inversely related to QOL (emotional) and SE (ambulatory). Therefore, those with higher BMI have greater SPA and the greater SPA results in reduced emotional QOL and reluctance to perform ambulatory tasks. Cardiac Rehabilitation patients with greater SPA may require more support regarding emotional status and confidence to participate in physical tasks.Table