Affordable Cardiac Rehabilitation An Outreach Inter-Disciplinary Strategic Study (ACROSS) – Research Programme Protocol

Rod S. Taylor*, Imran B. Chaudhry, Mithila Faraque, Panniyammakal Jeemon, Amy Blakemore, Karina Lovell, Nusrat Husain, Tahir Saghir, Saidur Rahman Mashreky, Sivadasanpillai Harikrishnan, Chaudhury Meshkat Ahmed, Abraham Samuel Babu, Alex McConnachie, Emma McIntosh, Rakhshi Memon, Sally Singh, Alastair Leyland, Bhautesh Jani, Walter Flores

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Background
The evidence and infrastructure needed to access and deliver cardiac rehabilitation (CR) services are absent or lacking in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), resulting in a substantial loss of potential health and socio-economic benefits. Home-based programmes provide an affordable model of delivery that can leverage a scalable increase in CR access in LMICs. ACROSS (Affordable Cardiac Rehabilitation: An Outreach Inter-disciplinary Strategic Study) seeks to co-develop (with patients, caregivers, clinicians, and service commissioners) a culturally and contextually applicable and affordable home-based programme for people with the multimorbidity of coronary heart disease and/or heart failure with co-existing depression and/or anxiety and evaluate the acceptability, clinical effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of its implementation in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and to determine its scalability and sustainability.

Methods
Four linked work packages (WPs). WP1 (cultural adaptation/refinement of home-based rehabilitation): examine rehabilitation implementation barriers/enablers from multiple stakeholder perspectives and co-develop a feasible and acceptable culturally & contextually adapted home-based programme, extended to take account of co-existing depression and/or anxiety; WP2 (external pilot): assess feasibility/acceptability of the co-developed rehabilitation intervention and study design and processes necessary for a full-scale trial; WP3: (multicentre/multi-country hybrid effectiveness and implementation randomised trial) determine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a culturally adapted home-based rehabilitation intervention for people with coronary heart disease and/or heart failure and depression and/or anxiety; WP4 (capacity building): build research and rehabilitation delivery capacity.

Conclusions
The ACROSS programme overarching goal is to develop a clinically and cost-effective CR model in low-resource settings for people in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan with a multimorbidity of heart disease and depression and/or anxiety with the potential for substantial health and socio-economic benefits.
Original languageEnglish
JournalNIHR Open Research
Volume5
Issue number41
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 May 2025

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Global inequalities

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