Determination of cardiovascular risks in adult individuals and assessment of the level of knowledge of cardiovascular risk factors

Abstract

Aims: In the last century, the negative effects of factors such as nutrition, intense work tempo and stress on cardiovascular health have been increasing. The importance of preventive health services is increasing and policies are being developed to increase quality. In Family Medicine practice, calculating the CVD risk that adult patients who do not have complaints about the cardiovascular system may experience in the coming years becomes important in this sense. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to calculate the ten-year risk of fatal cardiovascular events by SCORE risk scoring in apparently cardiovascularly healthy individuals presenting to a family medicine outpatient clinic and to plan treatment according to the results. We also aim to evaluate the awareness of CVD risk factors in these individuals by using the CARRF-KL Scale, whose reliability and efficacy have been shown in various previous studies. Methods: 122 voluntary individuals between the ages of 40-80 were recruited to a family medicine polyclinic for any reason (43 males, 79 females). Participants' awareness was assessed by the cardiovascular disease risk awareness scale (KARRIF-BD) and the 10-year cardiovascular disease risk by the SCORE risk score. Results: When the participants' SCORE risk averages were examined, 32.8% were low risk, 50.8% middle risk, 10.7% high risk and 5.7% very high risk group. When SBP levels according to the SCORE risk distribution were evaluated, in 7 patients with a very high risk distribution and the SBP value was higher than 130 mmHg, 2 of which were in the range of 130-139 mmHg, and 5 of them were above 140 mmHg. There was a statistically significant correlation between total cholesterol and LDL-C levels and SCORE risk score distribution of lipid profile distributions of participants (p<0.05). This relationship was not detected in HDL-C and TG levels. The mean scores of the men in the study group on the Karrif-BD scale were 24.83, while the women were 24.31 and there was no difference between the gender. When the KARRIF-BD scale mean scores were compared with the SCORE risk score distribution, no significant difference was found between the groups (F=1.026, p=0.384). Conclusion: Our study suggests that SCORE risk assessment in cardiovascular disease is an easy assessment that can routinely be performed in family medicine outpatient clinics. It is possible that cardiovascular diseases can be detected and prevented in advance by the spread of clinical measures such as SCORE and risk measures such as KARRIF-BD