Effect of stress management training in cardiac rehabilitation among coronary artery disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The stress management program is not considered as a part of routine cardiac rehabilitation due to the lack of consensus and inconsistencies in the studies detailing the relation between stress and coronary artery disease. The current meta-analysis is intended to determine the effectiveness of stress management in cardiac rehabilitation. The published literature studies until December 2020 were extracted from various databases and eligible studies were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Quality assessment of the selected studies was carried out using Jadad. The literature search of various databases yielded 154 studies and 9 were selected based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria. On the Jadad scale, 6 studies obtained a score of 3, whereas the remaining studies obtained a score of 2. Funnel plot findings reported no publication bias. The result of the meta-analysis showed a persistent improvement in Beck depression inventory-2, hospital anxiety scale and hospital depression scale in subjects who had undergone various stress management interventions. The meta-analysis corroborates the benefits of stress management training in cardiac rehabilitation and underscores the need to adopt a stress management program in routine cardiac care.