Improving engagement in Chronic Heart Failure rehabilitation in the community setting

Chronic Heart Failure is a life-long debilitating disease. Despite the well-established benefits of community-based rehabilitation in this population, engagement rates remain low. The aim of this thesis was to identify opportunities to improve engagement in CHF rehabilitation in the community setting. An exploratory sequential mixed methods thesis was completed, comprising four individual studies. Opportunities to improve engagement in rehabilitation were identified at the patient, clinician, and service level. This included opportunities to improve condition-specific health literacy for people with CHF, the knowledge surrounding referral and referral practices, patient flow across the continuum of care, and rehabilitation program access and design.