Cardiovascular Risk in Patients with Dyslipidemia and Their Degree of Control as Perceived by Primary Care Physicians in a Survey-TERESA-Opinion Study

The aim of this study was to evaluate, through a survey, the opinion of primary care (PC) physicians on the magnitude of dyslipidemia and its degree of control in their clinical practice. An ecological study was carried out, in which the physicians were invited to participate by means of an online letter. Data were collected at a single timepoint and were based only on the experience, knowledge, and routine clinical practice of the participating physician. A total of 300 physicians answered the questionnaire and estimated the prevalence of dyslipidemia between 2% and 80%. They estimated that 23.5% of their patients were high-risk, 18.2% were very high-risk, and 14.4% had recurrent events in the last 2 years. The PC physicians considered that 61.5% of their patients achieved the targets set. The participants fixed the presence of side-effects to statins at 14%. The statin that was considered safest with regard to side-effects was rosuvastatin (69%). PC physicians in Spain perceive that the CVR of their patients is high. This, together with the overestimation of the degree of control of LDL-C, could justify the inertia in the treatment of lipids. Moreover, they perceive that one-sixth of the patients treated with statins have side-effects.