Awareness of cardiovascular risk factors in ambulatory cardiology patients

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of mortality. The majority of CVD risk factors are modifiable and controllable so the knowledge of them might prevent circulatory diseases development and improve already diagnosed CVD outcomes. The aim of the study was to assess the awareness of risk factors for CVD in ambulatory patients of cardiology offices. A specially designed questionnaire was used by trained physicians in a structured technique of face-to-face interview in 284 consecutive patients (men - 47.9%, aged 64.1 ± 11.2 years). As many as 6.3% of the study participants did not name any CVD risk factor, whereas only 7.4% of patients knew at least 3 of them. Smoking and high cholesterol were best recognized (33.1% and 27.4%, respectively) while the least often quoted old age was identified only by 2.5% of the individuals. The average number of the listed CVD risk factors equaled 1.38 ± 0.77. In the multiple regression analysis the factors significantly associated with knowledge of CVD risk factors comprised the level of education (b = 0.55, p < 0.0001) and age (b = -0.02, p < 0.0001). The patients with family history of CVD diseases were more often aware of the fact that family history of CVD is a risk factor for CVD as compared to individuals with no relatives affected by CVD (21.9% vs 10.1%, p = 0.0061). To the contrary, respondents with hypercholesterolemia less often knew that dyslipidemia is a CVD risk factor than patients with normal cholesterol levels (24.1% vs 41.1%, p = 0.0108). In conclusion, the awareness of cardiovascular risk factors in ambulatory cardiology patients is very low. The perception of CVD risk factors is affected by the level of education and age.