Abstract
Assessment of absolute cardiovascular risk is a rational method of managing hypertension. General practitioners and practice nurses were asked to estimate absolute risk in a group of elderly hypertensive patients during clinical practice. Risk was correctly estimated in 21% of patients, underestimated in 63% of patients, and overestimated in 16% of patients. Unless primary health care professionals use cardiovascular risk charts or tables, treatment decisions in primary care may not be made against realistic estimates of patients' susceptibility to cardiovascular disease.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (32.8 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Anderson K. M., Odell P. M., Wilson P. W., Kannel W. B. Cardiovascular disease risk profiles. Am Heart J. 1991 Jan;121(1 Pt 2):293–298. doi: 10.1016/0002-8703(91)90861-b. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Chatellier G., Blinowska A., Menard J., Degoulet P. Do physicians estimate reliably the cardiovascular risk of hypertensive patients?. Medinfo. 1995;8(Pt 2):876–879. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Grover S. A., Lowensteyn I., Esrey K. L., Steinert Y., Joseph L., Abrahamowicz M. Do doctors accurately assess coronary risk in their patients? Preliminary results of the coronary health assessment study. BMJ. 1995 Apr 15;310(6985):975–978. doi: 10.1136/bmj.310.6985.975. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Meland E., Laerum E., Stensvold I. Assessment of coronary heart disease risk, I. A postal inquiry among primary care physicians. Fam Pract. 1994 Jun;11(2):117–121. doi: 10.1093/fampra/11.2.117. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ménard J., Chatellier G. Mild hypertension: the mysterious viability of a faulty concept. J Hypertens. 1995 Oct;13(10):1071–1077. doi: 10.1097/00004872-199510000-00001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]