2.1. Design and Search Strategy

A systematic review with meta-analysis was performed following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) statement [27]. The study was registered (ID: 279501) in the PROSPERO database (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews). The search was carried out in the CINAHL, Cochrane, LILACS, Medline, Scopus, and SciELO databases. The MeSH terms were used in the following search strategy: “myocardial infarction AND quality of life AND (cardiac rehabilitation OR education) AND randomised controlled trial”. The search was completed in July 2021.

The PICO strategy was used. The population was adults older than 18 years after MI, and the intervention was a supervised cardiac rehabilitation programme (supervised exercise programme, record of level of physical activity, telephone follow-up, or individual counselling). The comparison was addressed to usual care programmes (defined as standard care based on pharmacologic treatment or other non-supervised rehabilitation programmes and may include health education related to diet, education support, or non-structured exercise). The outcome was the measurement of health-related quality of life through validated instruments. Therefore, the research question was: Does a supervised exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation programme influence the health-related quality of life of patients after MI?