Patients with stable angina pectoris have a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply the heart with oxygen. When oxygen demand increases, for example during exercise, symptoms such as chest pain can occur. The current treatment of these patients is medication, and if symptoms persist, a procedure is performed to restore blood flow to the heart. However, the clinical added value of this procedure is questioned. In this thesis, we investigated whether cardiac rehabilitation, in which patients regularly exercise, offers advantages over surgery. Our findings indicate that participation in cardiac rehabilitation is associated with an improved quality of life, a lower risks of hospitalisation, stroke and myocardial infarction, and a lower risk of mortality, while cardiac rehabilitation also leads to lower healthcare costs. Furthermore, we found that the effects of cardiac rehabilitation are explained by both physical and psychosocial components.
Iris de Koning (1996) obtained her Master’s degree in Cardiovascular Research at the Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc in 2019. In 2020 she started with her PhD research as part of the Cardiovascular physiology group of Radboudumc. Currently, she is working as Policy advisor Healthy living at the municipality of De Ronde Venen.