Patients with cardiovascular diseases face difficulty to adhere to non-pharmaceutical treatment recommendations and consequently face an increased recurrence rate, re-hospitalizations and poor quality of life. Our review of the literature over the past decade aims to be a useful tool to the enlightening of health care providers and health educators about the interventions that enhance treatment adherence to lifestyle modification. PubMed, PsycLIT, Cochrane Library, Scopus, CINAhl, PSYinfo, Web of Science, and Central databases were searched to identify articles published within the decade 2011-2021 and 42 studies met the criteria for inclusion. Our study revealed many different approaches to inconsistency in life style prescriptions focusing mainly on psychological and social factors. Interventions like increasing of knowledge, joining cardiac rehabilitation programs, development of a therapeutic alliance, behavioral techniques that reinforce self-efficacy and motivation, use of technology as reminder and creating a support network are not only effective but also lowcost programs that will play a decisive role in treatment effectiveness. Improving treatment adherence to lifestyle recommendations requires a multidimensial approach by an interdisciplinary team of health professionals. Investing in interventions that improve attitudes, beliefs, readiness and self-care, can prove to be very rewarding for patients, health and economics. The present literature review will assist health professionals and educators create experiential educational and behavioral programs that promote the adoption of healthy behavior and help maintain adherence over time. Future research is required for identifying the most effective interventions based on different lifestyles practices and cultural factors.

Background: There is a growning evidence that CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) improves mental health of patients with chronic illnesses but its effectiveness is not well established in patients with heart diseases. The present systematic review was conducted to evaluate the effects of CBT in heart failure (HF) and coronary heart disease (CHD) patients.Methods:  Pubmed, Cohraine and Google Scholar were searched for studies with randomized controlled trials. Studies were required to assess the effectiveness of CBT in depression, anxiety, sleep and quality of life of patients suffering from heart failure and coronary heart disease. SStudies identified were independently screened by two reviewers and critically appraised using the PedroScale.Results:  Sixteen randomized controlled trials were included in the review. The majority of the studies indicated that CBT therapy was effective treatment for reducing depression and anxiety and can also be beneficial for sleeping disorders and improve quality of life of patients with heart failure and coronary heart disease. Althought face to face CBT therapy seems to be clinicaly effective, internet-based CBT therapy was not superior to a guided web-based discussion forum.Conclusions: CBT can improve psychological health and quality of life of cardiac patients and further enhance benefits of rehabilitation programs.  Findings suggest that face-to-face CBT is superior to usual care and it can be incorporated in cardiac rehabilitations programs. Future studies are needed to identify the effectiveness of internet-based CBT on cardiac patients and address the factors that will increase treatment adherence.