Tag: Cardiovascular Disease

Development of a questionnaire to evaluate patients’ awareness of CVD risk in England’s NHS Health Check Programme

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of disability and premature mortality worldwide. In England, it accounts for a third of deaths and costs the National Health Service (NHS) and the UK economy £30 billion annually.

The National Health Service (NHS) Health Check is a CVD risk assessment and management programme in England aiming to increase CVD risk awareness among people at increased risk of CVD. There was previously no tool to assess the effectiveness of the programme in communicating CVD risk to patients. In research published in the journal BMJ Open, we describe how we developed a questionnaire examining patients’ CVD risk awareness for use in health service research evaluations of the NHS Health Check programme.

We developed an 85-item questionnaire to determine patients’ views of their risk of CVD. The questionnaire was based on a review of the relevant literature. After review by an expert panel and focus group discussion, 22 items were dropped and 2 new items were added. The resulting 65-item questionnaire with satisfactory content validity (content validity indices≥0.80) and face validity was tested on 110 NHS Health Check attendees.

Following analyses of data, we reduced the questionnaire from 65 to 26 items. The 26-item questionnaire constitutes four scales: Knowledge of CVD Risk and Prevention, Perceived Risk of Heart Attack/Stroke, Perceived Benefits and Intention to Change Behaviour and Healthy Eating Intentions. Perceived Risk (Cronbach’s α=0.85) and Perceived Benefits and Intention to Change Behaviour (Cronbach’s α=0.82) have satisfactory reliability (Cronbach’s α≥0.70). Healthy Eating Intentions (Cronbach’s α=0.56) is below minimum threshold for reliability but acceptable for a three-item scale.

This is the first study that describes the development of a short, validated questionnaire with satisfactory content and face validity and reliability examining CVD risk awareness among the NHS Health Check attendees. The ABCD Risk Questionnaire may be used for evaluating the accuracy of perceived CVD risk, general knowledge of CVD and intention to change behaviour regarding diet and exercise among NHS Health Check attendees.

Agreement between perceived and predicted CVD risk suggests that the tool performs well in assessing perceived CVD risk. As the questionnaire was developed using both an expert panel and a patient focus group, it ought to be relatively easy to understand for both patients and clinicians. If NHS Health Check recommendations change over time, it may need to be updated. The resulting questionnaire, with its satisfactory reliability and validity, may be used in assessing patients’ awareness of CVD risk among NHS Health Check attendees.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014413

Sex differences in cardiovascular events and procedures in people with and without diabetes

An article published in the journal Cardiovascular Diabetology examines gender differences in hospital admissions for major cardiovascular events and procedures in people with and without diabetes.

Secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) has improved immensely during the past few decades but controversies persist about the cardiovascular benefits among women with diabetes. We investigated 11-year trends in hospital admission rates for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), stroke, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) in people with and without diabetes by gender in England.

We found that diabetes-related admission rates remained unchanged for AMI, increased for stroke by 2% and for PCI by 3%; and declined for CABG by 3% annually. Trends did not differ significantly by diabetes status. Women with diabetes had significantly lower rates of AMI and stroke compared with men with diabetes. However, gender differences in admission rates for AMI attenuated in diabetes compared with the non-diabetic group.

While diabetes tripled admission rates for AMI in men, it increased it by over four-fold among women. Furthermore, while the presence of diabetes was associated with a three-fold increase in rates for PCI and a five-fold increase in rates for CABG in men; among women, diabetes was associated with a 4.4-fold increased admission rates for PCI and 6.2-fold increased rates for CABG. Proportional changes in rates were similar in men and women for all study outcomes, leaving the relative risk of admissions largely unchanged.

We concluded that diabetes still confers a greater increase in risk of hospital admission for AMI in women relative to men. However, the absolute risk remains higher in men. These results call for intensified CVD risk factor management among people with diabetes, consideration of gender-specific treatment targets, and treatment intensity to be aligned with levels of CVD risk.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-017-0580-0