Abstract
Background: It is recommended that people attending cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs engage in =150 minutes per week of moderate to vigourous physical activity (MVPA). However, it is unknown how many steps / day are required to meet the MVPA recommendation. Methods: 208 patients were recruited within the 1st 3 weeks of attending 12-week CR programs across Nova Scotia. They also completed a comprehensive social ecological survey and wore an actigraph accelerometer and GPS unit ranging from 9 to 14 days. The same procedure was done at the end of CR; only baseline data were analyzed for the current submission. Results: 190 patients (45.3% = 65; 76.8% male; 51.1% retired; 40.0% obese; 44.7% had a myocardial infarction) at baseline had = 3 valid days (i.e., = 10 hours of wear time / day) were included in the analysis. Total minutes of MVPA for the week recorded in bouts = 10 minutes were dichotomized into 0 = = 150 minutes / week and 1 = = 150 minutes / week. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analyses showed that 6998 steps per day produced a sensitivity of .94 and specificity of .21 with an area under the curve of .90. Discussion: CR patients who engage in 6998 steps per day are likely meeting the 150 minute / week MVPA recommendation. Future studies need to replicate the current findings and determine whether the 6998 steps per day recommendation holds true for various sub-groups (e.g., males vs. females).Acknowledgments: Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation