Evaluating quality and its determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of heart disease and stroke in primary care: a study in an inner London Borough

OBJECTIVES: To assess quality of management and determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) using multilevel regression models. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Inner London borough, with a primary care registered population of 378,000 (2013). PARTICIPANTS: 48/49 participating general practices with 7869 patients on heart disease/stroke registers were included. OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) Recording of current total cholesterol levels and lipid control according to national evidence-based standards. (2) Assessment of quality by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, presence of other risks or comorbidity in meeting both lipid measurement and control standards. RESULTS: Some process standards were not met. Patients with a current cholesterol measurement >5 mmol/L were less likely to have a current statin prescription (adjusted OR=3.10; 95% CI 2.70 to 3.56). They were more likely to have clustering of other CVD risk factors. Women were significantly more likely to have raised cholesterol after adjustment for other factors (adjusted OR=1.74; 95% CI 1.53 to 1.98). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the key factor that explained poor lipid control in people with CVD was having no current prescription record of a statin. Women were more likely to have poorly controlled cholesterol (independent of comorbid risk factors and after adjusting for age, ethnicity, deprivation index and practice-level variation). Women with CVD should be offered statin prescription and may require higher statin dosage for improved control.