Objectives. Female cardiac patients' health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) during the first year after an acute cardiac event was compared with age‐weighted Australian population norms. The impact of age, event type and cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programme attendance on recovery was assessed.

Methods. The short form 36‐item health survey (SF‐36) was administered to 229 women aged from 36 to 84 years consecutively admitted to 4 hospitals after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or to undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABGS). Data were collected at 4 time points over 12 months. SF‐36 subscale scores were compared with age‐weighted norms for Australian women. Mplus was used to analyse growth trajectories for SF‐36 subscales.

Results. Patients had impaired HRQoL at baseline (except in general health), with progressive improvement over time. Recovery to normative levels was fastest in the areas of bodily pain and mental health (by 2 months) and slowest in the area of physical functioning, and physical and emotional role limitations (by 12 months). By 4 months, general health scores had surpassed population norms. For all scales, most improvement occurred in the first 2 months, with little subsequent improvement. CABGS patients showed significantly more improvement than AMI patients in several areas, partly due to the poorer functioning of CABGS patients at baseline. Rate of improvement was not influenced by patients' age or frequency of CR attendance.

Conclusion. Impairment of HRQoL in female cardiac patients is most pronounced at the time of the event, with most recovery occurring during early convalescence and full recovery in all domains by 12 months post‐event.