Cardiovascular risk assessment for patients with serious mental illnesses : an internal review

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of excess premature mortality among patients with serious mental illness (SMI), mainly because of higher cardiovascular risk and metabolic syndrome compared to the general population.1,2 A pertinent contributing factor is second-generation antipsychotics, which further negatively impact the cardiovascular risk burden, amounting to a significant clinical and public health challenge among patients with SMI.3 Qatar has a high metabolic syndrome prevalence of 26%, and the blood pressure of patients with SMI receiving antipsychotics is significantly higher.4 In 2019, the Pharmacy Department of Mental Health Services at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) in Doha, Qatar flagged four moderately and one mildly severe cases of adverse drug reaction secondary to antipsychotics. In response to above mentioned incidents, this quality improvement (QI) project was conducted in an acute inpatient male ward from November 2019 to June 2020 in the Psychiatry Hospital of Hamad Medical Corporation to implement a cardiovascular risk assessment for inpatients with SMI. The atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk estimator was used to estimate the 10-year risk of CVD, and inpatients were categorized into low-risk (,5%), borderline risk (5%–7.4%), intermediate-risk (7.5%–19.9%), and high risk ($20%).5 Patients with SMI above 40 years of age were included. Within 72 hours of admission, the admitting inpatient nurse filled a cardiovascular risk assessment (CVRA) ques- tionnaire, including basic demographics, past and present cardiology and smoking history, laboratory test results such as lipid panel, and renal function tests. This study used an in-depth, semi-structured face-to- face interview as a primary data collection technique.