Interventions supporting cardiac rehabilitation completion: Process evaluation investigating theory-based mechanisms of action.

Findings help explain the trial results, suggesting that mailouts plus telephone support increased the likelihood of completing cardiac rehabilitation by enhancing self-efficacy and action planning, and increased intention by enhancing goal priority, self-efficacy, and outcome expectancies, with an unintended consequence of a negative effect via risk perceptions. Conducting theory-based process evaluations alongside trials of behavior change interventions can clarify mechanisms of action, which can inform efforts to refine interventions and to replicate and generalize findings to other jurisdictions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).