Prevalence, awareness and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in health professionals in the cardiovascular field: an italian pilot study

Objective: Physicians and researchers in the cardiovascular (CV) field are constantly engaged in the promotion of guidelines-directed preventive measures, but whether they are themselves adherent to the same recommendations was only sporadically assessed. Design and method: During the annual meeting of the Italian Society of Hypertension (October 2022), a pilot observational study on consecutive volunteer health professionals was conducted. Participants underwent three standard sitting and two standing (1-3 minutes) blood pressure (BP) measurements and answered a questionnaire regarding modifiable/not modifiable CV risk factors and related treatments. Hypertension was defined as BP more then 140 and/or 90 mmHg or as a pre-existing diagnosis. Orthostatic hypotension was defined as a decrease of systolic BP more then 20 mmHg or of diastolic BP more then 10 mmHg; orthostatic hypertension was defined as an increase of systolic BP more then 20 mmHg or of diastolic BP more then 11 mmHg. Results: In total, 62 participants (30F, mean age 43.2±14.8 years; 74.2% non-smokers) were enrolled; 79% reported regular physical activity; 53% of women and 38% of men were on a low-salt diet. Dyslipidemia was the most common risk factor (17.7%), but only 63.3% were on a statin; 22.6% had high BP, of whom 50% were unaware; 1.6% and 16.4% had orthostatic hypo- and hypertension, respectively. Conclusions: Despite the specific professional involvement, room for improvement in self CV risk factors awareness and management was detected in the examined exploratory sample of health professionals. This pilot research anticipates forthcoming, larger studies during national and international meetings.