Effects of Yogic Interventions on Patients Diagnosed with Cardiac Diseases

Objective(s): The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on yogic interventions compared with usual care or non-pharmacological treatment in patients diagnosed with cardiac diseases.

Data Sources: We conducted an electronic search of literature published in last the 15 years, i.e., from 2006 to May 2021 through five databases, viz., CINAHL, Central Embase, Google Scholar, PubMed, and Cochrane Library.

Study Selection: Studies fulfilling the following eligibility criteria were included: (a) Randomized control trial as the study design. (b) Fulltext articles written in English, diagnosed cardiac condition, yogic intervention compared to or in addition to standard treatment or no treatment at all in adult patients with cardiac diseases. (c) Full-text studies that examined physical outcomes.
Studies that were excluded were those that included yoga as part of a mind-body intervention program, review articles, or meta-analysis, abstracts, opinion articles or letter to editors, and interventions other than randomized control trials.

Data Extraction: Data were independently extracted by two reviewers, SK and PA, on characteristics of study location, year of study, participants, study duration, sample size, male-female ratio, inclusion and exclusion criteria, details of intervention given to experimental groups and control groups, duration of study, outcome measures, and results of study. The data were rechecked by a third reviewer, SP, and all disagreements and discrepancies were resolved by consensus.

Data Synthesis: The Meta-Essentials software was used for summarization of data for all the outcome measures provided that at least two studies were available on a particular outcome. Random effects models were used to calculate summary estimate with 95% confidence interval. A random-effects model is based on the assumption that selected studies were drawn from a population of studies that are systematically different from each other. Forest plots were constructed to graphically display the results. Zero specifies no heterogeneity, 25% is low, 50% is moderate, and 75% is high heterogeneity. A value of more than 0.05 in Q statistic indicated variance in studies and not between studies. An analysis was conducted on all the studies with exclusion of outliers.

Conclusions: This systematic review and meta-analysis showed strong evidence of the effectiveness of yogic interventions in the lipid profile, blood pressure, depression, stress, anxiety, and quality of life of patients diagnosed with cardiac diseases.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors declare no conflict of interest.