| Study | Reason for exclusion |
|---|---|
| Amat Santos 2012 | Patient population not appropriate. Conference paper |
| Bakhshayesh 2018 | Population |
| Batra 2012 | Not a randomised trial |
| Brosseau 1995 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Cargnin 2019 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Chambers 2005 | Letter to the Editor; not a randomised trial |
| Chan 2012 | Not a randomised trial (systematic review of effectiveness of qigong in cardiac rehabilitation) |
| CTRI 2017 | Inappropriate Intervention |
| de Charmoy 2000 | Intervention not appropriate (chest physiotherapy) |
| Deepa 2018 | Not an RCT |
| Dull 1983 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Editorial 2018 | Editorial to paper that compares CR referral and outcomes in TAVR vs SAVR patients |
| Fang 2002 | Inappropriate intervention (rehabilitation guidance at 24 hours after surgery and QoL measure) and unclear patient population (including both patients with rheumatic heart disease and patients after valve replacement) |
| Ferreira 2009 | Intervention not appropriate (inspiratory breathing exercises) |
| Fontes Cerqueira 2018 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Gaita 1999 | Patient population not appropriate (randomisation method and study population unclear) |
| Ghalamghash 2008 | Not a randomised trial |
| Gortner 1988 | Intervention not appropriate (nursing intervention, no physical exercise) |
| Green 2013 | Not a randomised trial |
| Grunewald 1971 | Not a randomised trial |
| Ha 2011 | Not a randomised trial. Not possible to obtain full paper |
| Hokanson 2011 | Letter to the Editor; not a randomised trial |
| Hui 2006 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Jairath 1995 | Not a randomised trial (non‐randomised cluster trial) |
| Johnson 1996 | Intervention not appropriate (physical intervention in control group) |
| Kardis 2007 | Not a randomised trial (a randomised case control study) |
| Kassirskii 1983 | Not a randomised trial (an observational study) |
| Kassirskii 1991 | Not a randomised trial |
| Kodric 2013 | Patient population not appropriate (patients after all kinds of major cardiac surgery) |
| Kübler 1984 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Liao 2004 | Intervention not eligible (no physical intervention, only psychological and behavioural interventions) |
| Lim 1998 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Martsinkiavichus 1980 | Not a randomised trial |
| McDermott 2019 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Nagashio 2003 | Patient population not appropriate |
| Nehyba 2009 | Not a randomised trial (a non‐randomised cluster trial); patient population including patients with coronary artery bypass surgery |
| Newell 1980 | Not a randomised trial (a non‐randomised cluster trial) |
| Patel 2019 | Investigators were looking into the rate of CR enrolment in the studied population |
| Peng 2018 | Inappropriate population |
| Petrunina 1980 | Not a randomised trial |
| Prasciene 2019 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Pressler 2015 | Conference abstract for included study |
| RBR‐8swgc3 2017 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Rizwan 2012 | Not a randomised trial |
| Rogers2018 | Conference abstract for included study |
| Roseler 1997 | Not a randomised trial and inappropriate patient population |
| Rosenfeldt 2011 | Patient population not appropriate (patients with valve surgery and coronary artery bypass graft surgery) |
| Royse 2015 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Song 2019 | Non‐RCT |
| Stoickov 2018 | Outcomes |
| Sumide 2009 | Not a randomised trial |
| Tang 2019 | The only RCT of interest in this study is the one that has been updated |
| Therrien 2003 | Patient population not appropriate (repaired tetralogy of Fallot) |
| Ueshima 2004 | Not a randomised trial |
| Viana 2018 | Not an RCT |
| Weber 2019 | Inappropriate intervention |
| Widimsky 2009 | Patient population not appropriate (patients with acute myocardial infarction) |
| Yan 2016 | Not an RCT |
| Yau 2018 | Inappropriate intervention |
CR: cardiac rehabilitation. QoL: quality of life. RCT: randomised controlled trial. SAVR: surgical aortic valve replacement. TAVR: transcatheter aortic valve replacement.