Effects of Early Mobilization Program on the Heart Rate and Blood Pressure of Patients With Myocardial Infarction Hospitalized at the Coronary Care Unit

Myocardial infarction (MI) is amongst medical emergency situations. Decline of heart rate and blood pressure during the initial days after admission due to myocardial infarction are the main goals of treatment that decrease the pressure on the myocardium.

This study was performed to determine the effects of patients early mobilization program on heart rate and blood pressure of patients with MI hospitalized at the coronary care unit (CCU).

This study was a clinical trial that was performed on 38 patients with myocardial infarction at the CCU of Shahid Beheshti hospital of Babol. Samples were selected using purposive sampling and were randomly allocated into experimental and control groups. Patients in the experimental group, within 12 - 18 hours after admission to the CCU, were mobilized with a specified program while in the control group, patients got out of bed on the basis of routine care within 48 hours after admission. Heart rate and blood pressure was measured every six hours during the first and third day of admission and were compared between the two groups.

In the experimental group, mean heart rate during the first day was 82.16 ± 13.83 and on the third day was 75.37 ± 9.73. In the control group, mean heart rate during the first day was 70.67 ± 13.76 and on the third day was 73.84 ± 12.69. The difference between the mean heart rates of the first and third day was 6.79 ± 11.2 for the experimental group and -3.16 ± 7.3 for the control group. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between differences of mean heart rate during the first and third days in the two groups (P = 0.003). Analysis showed that there was no significant difference between changes of mean systolic blood pressure (P = 0.1) and diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.11) on the first and third day, in the two groups.

This study showed that the early mobilization program could reduce heart rate. Therefore, based on the results of this study, use of the early mobilization program in the treatment and care program of patients with myocardial infarction is suggested