Social Support in Cardiac Rehabilitation Exercise Maintenance: Associations with Self‐Efficacy and Health‐Related Quality of Life¹

Abstract

This study examined whether cardiac rehabilitation (CR) maintenance exercise participants who were high and moderate in social support (SS) differed in their types of self‐efficacy and health‐related quality of life, and whether SS was related to self‐efficacy. Measures of SS, self‐efficacy (i.e., walking, scheduling, in‐class efficacy), and health‐related quality of life (HRQL) were administered to 64 CR maintenance exercise participants. A one‐way, between‐groups MANOVA was significant ( p < .01), indicating that CR participants higher in SS reported significantly greater self‐efficacy and physical HRQL than did their moderate counterparts. In addition, social support predicted significant variance in task self‐efficacy. The findings suggest that differential perceptions of SS are related to differences in walking, in‐class and scheduling self‐efficacy, and the physical component of HRQL among CR exercise maintainers.