Key result
Experiencing a cardiovascular disease event was associated with a significantly greater reduction in smoking prevalence (10% vs 5% reduction) and improvements in active commuting and exercise compared to matched controls.
Why the study?
There is limited knowledge regarding how lifestyle-related habits and factors change from before to after a cardiovascular disease event.
Does experiencing a cardiovascular disease event improve lifestyle habits and lifestyle-related factors in Swedish employees compared to matched controls?
Case-Control (n=2,548)
Does experiencing a cardiovascular disease event improve lifestyle habits and lifestyle-related factors in Swedish employees compared to matched controls?
Absolute Event Rate: 10% vs 5%
p-value: p=<0.001
Experiencing a cardiovascular event is associated with a greater improvement in lifestyle habits such as smoking cessation and exercise compared to individuals without an event, though the overall prevalence of unhealthy habits remains high.
BACKGROUND: Healthy lifestyle habits are recommended in prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, there is limited knowledge concerning the change in lifestyle-related factors from before to after a CVD event. Thus, this study aimed to explore if and how lifestyle habits and other lifestyle-related factors changed between two health assessments in individuals experiencing a CVD event between the assessments, and if changes varied between subgroups of sex, age, educational level, duration from CVD event to second assessment and type of CVD event. METHODS: Among 115,504 Swedish employees with data from two assessments of occupational health screenings between 1992 and 2020, a total of 637 individuals (74% men, mean age 47 ± SD 9 years) were identified having had a CVD event (ischemic heart disease, cardiac arrythmia or stroke) between the assessments. Cases were matched with controls without an event between assessments from the same database (ratio 1:3, matching with replacement) by sex, age, and time between assessment (n = 1911 controls). Lifestyle habits included smoking, active commuting, exercise, diet, alcohol intake, and were self-rated. Lifestyle-related factors included overall stress, overall health (both self-rated), physical capacity (estimated by submaximal cycling), body mass index and resting blood pressure. Differences in lifestyle habits and lifestyle-related factors between cases and controls, and changes over time, were analysed with parametric and non-parametric tests. Multiple logistic regression, OR (95% CI) was used to analyse differences in change between subgroups. RESULTS: Cases had, in general, a higher prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle habits as well as negative life-style related factors prior to the event compared to controls. Nevertheless, cases improved their lifestyle habits and lifestyle factors to a higher degree than controls, especially their amount of active commuting (p = 0.025), exercise (p = 0.009) and non-smoking (p < 0.001). However, BMI and overall health deteriorated to a greater extent (p < 0.001) among cases, while physical capacity (p < 0.001) decreased in both groups. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that a CVD event may increase motivation to improve lifestyle habits. Nonetheless, the prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle habits was still high, emphasizing the need to improve implementation of primary and secondary CVD prevention.
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Lönn et al. (2023) conducted a case-control in Cardiovascular disease (n=2,548). Cardiovascular disease event vs. Matched controls without a cardiovascular disease event was evaluated on Decrease in smoking prevalence between assessments (p=<0.001). Experiencing a cardiovascular disease event was associated with a significantly greater reduction in smoking prevalence (10% vs 5% reduction) and improvements in active commuting and exercise compared to matched controls.
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