Social support in cardiac rehabilitation exercise maintenance: Associations with self-efficacy and health-related quality of life

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.