A mobile health application for people in remote and rural Queensland who have experienced a cardiovascular event.

Intervention group: CARDIHAB© Mobile Health Application (mHealth app [includes weekly mentoring]) & standard care. Materials will consist of the following: mobile phones, mHealth app and internet access, six-minute walk test (6MWT), Hospital Anxiety & Depression Scale (HADS), Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale (ARMS), 12-item Short Form Survey (SF-12v2), and Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). The mHealth app will be available to patients and will prospectively document the patient’s secondary prevention uptake and attendance, activity, record complications (e.g., angina), while also acting as a supportive measure with an automated message service. The mHealth app will act as a resource for home-based patient problem solving (e.g., angina identification & management). Participants will be remotely monitored by clinicians (i.e., cardiology team & practice nurses) and receive weekly mentoring for 6-weeks. The intervention will be administered to participants within one month post-discharge after experiencing a cardiac event. All intervention group participants will be referred to attend standard cardiac rehabilitation. Participants will use their personal mobile phones and download the mHealth app with the guidance of an instruction sheet. Technical assistance will also be available via telephone if required. A practice nurse will contact participants to: 1. randomise participants. A research nurse will be blinded to the allocation sequence and only contact study participants to administer questionnaires as part of scheduled follow-up and undertake interviews (8-weeks). The chief investigator (CI) will be unblinded to the allocation sequence to: 1. undertake weekly mentoring for 6-weeks as part of the mHealth app and program; 2. monitor participant data entry; & 3. contact participants experiencing complications to provide further assistance throughout the course of the intervention (6-weeks). Weekly mentoring: involves participants receiving a 15-minute telephone call by a cardiology trained, registered nurse (the CI) surrounding heart health activities, the post-discharge period, cardiovascular health and well-being. Goal setting and education around different themes will also be undertaken as part of weekly mentoring and follow up. On baseline assessment (time 1), participants will complete three questionnaires (HADS; ARMS; & SF-12v2) administered by a research nurse via telephone call. The research nurse will be blinded to the allocation sequence. Participants will also undertake a 6MWT. Participants will then enter data (i.e., blood glucose level, waist circumference, blood pressure) into the mHealth application on a daily basis for six weeks (approximately 10 minutes per day), and receive weekly mentoring as part of the program. At week 6 (time 2), the research nurse will contact participants via telephone to re-administer all three questionnaires and repeat the 6MWT. At week 8 (time 3), a semi-structured interview (30 minutes in duration) and the MARS instrument will be administered to intervention group participants by the research nurse to assess their experience, utility, usability and acceptability and quality of the cardiac rehabilitation mobile health technology.