Cardiovascular risk factors in a sampled cluster of geriatric Nigerians in a tertiary hospital in South-Eastern Nigeria: Implications for primary care geriatric cardiovascular health advocacy

Background: Cardiovascular (CV) risk factors tend to aggregate in geriatric population with variable distribution. These risk factors may act as alert signals for proactive geriatric CV health programs. Aim: This study was aimed at determining the frequencies of nonconstitutional CV risk factors in a sampled cluster of geriatric Nigerians in a tertiary hospital in South-eastern Nigeria. Setting and Design: This was a cross-sectional study carried out on a sampled of 280 geriatric Nigerians at the primary care clinic of Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria, between May 2012 and October 2012. Subjects and Methods: Geriatric Nigerians aged 60 years and above were screened for nonconstitutional risk factors of CV disease. The data collected included sociodemographic variables, metabolic, dietary, and behavioral risk factors using a structured, pretested, and researcher administered the questionnaire. Results: The top five most common CV risk factors were as follows: physical inactivity (67.1%), inadequate fruits consumption (65.7%), hypertension (48.2%), abdominal obesity (47.9%), and dyslipidemia (36.8%). Others were general obesity (31.1%), inadequate vegetable consumption (22.5%), diabetes mellitus (15.7%), habitual use of alcohol beverages (9.0%), habitual use of snuff (3.9%), and nonhabitual smoking of cigarettes (2.8%). Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that risk factors of CV disease exist among geriatric Nigerians in primary care with five most frequent being physical inactivity, inadequate fruits consumption, hypertension, abdominal obesity, and dyslipidemia. Screening geriatric Nigerians for modifiable CV risk factors should be integrated into geriatric primary health care in the study area.