Objective To investigate the correlation between the patient’s awareness on cardiac rehabilitation with exercise compliance, and to find out the reasons for poor compliance in cardiac rehabilitation. Methods A total of 87 coronary heart disease (CHD) patients hospitalized in our department due to unstable angina from February 1, to April 1,7, and undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for the first time were enrolled in this study. During their re-hospitalization in 1 to 2 years after discharge, questionnaire survey was used to investigate their general information and awareness on cardiac rehabilitation. And semi-structured interview was employed for the items that could not be scored in the questionnaires. Pearson correlation analysis was employed to analyze the correlation of the score of exercise compliance with awareness level on cardiac rehabilitation. Results Most participants (66.7%) had the score of awareness on cardiac rehabilitation ranging from 30 to 45, and 74.8% had the similar range for the score of exercise compliance. Eight subjects (9.2%) knew well about cardiac rehabilitation, 23 (26.4%) knew some, and 56 (66.4%) had never known about it. There were 78 participants (89.6%) who considered cardiac rehabilitation very important or important. The score of exercise compliance was positively correlated with the score of the awareness (r=0.931) and exercise habit (r=0.334). For those who were proficient in mobile phones, they preferred mobile phone APP for the guidance of home rehabilitation. ConclusionLow awareness level on cardiac rehabilitation indicates poor scores of the awareness and exercise compliance, though most patients accept the importance of cardiac rehabilitation. Poor awareness also is the main reason for poor exercise compliance.