Chat-Based Digital Clinic Encourages Individuals at High Risk of Cardiovascular Disease to Contact Physician Following Digital Risk Communication (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital communication of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk directly to individuals can promote preventive actions. We have previously shown that communicating CVD-risk, including polygenic risk information through a web portal leads to about 20 % of individuals at high risk of CVD contacting a physician. OBJECTIVE To test if mobile-optimised risk communication combined with a chat-based digital clinic for consulting a physician would increase preventive actions among individuals at high risk of CVD. METHODS We studied N=4808 Finnish individuals, aged 40-60 years with no history of cardiovascular disease and at least one major risk factor for CVD. The digital clinic group (N=1050) received the intervention. Matched controls (N=3758) were sampled from our previous study, and they received CVD-risk information without chat-based access to health professionals. RESULTS Compared to the matched controls, individuals in the digital clinic group were more likely to seek contact with a physician following digital risk communication (36.4 % vs. 18.6 % of individuals at high risk sought contact; P=.03). Majority of participants found the risk communication and chat-based digital consultation easy to understand (95 %) and useful (93 %). CONCLUSIONS Mobile-optimised CVD-risk communication followed by an easy access to physician’s consultation considerably elevated the likelihood of contacting physician compared to only communicating the individual’s risk. Further research is needed to target the health care resources optimally in this mobile setting to the individuals most in need for risk-lowering actions.