Risk factor awareness and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease: are we doing enough?

We prospectively assessed the patient awareness of risk factors of coronary artery disease (CAD) in this study by performing a voluntary questionnaire survey of 235 patients undergoing first time coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) between May and December 2003. We assessed patient awareness of smoking, hypertension (HT), hypercholesterolaemia (HC), obesity, family history (FM) and diabetes (DM) and role of medication in secondary prevention. One hundred and eighty-seven ex- or current smokers (79.6%), 175 hypercholesterolaemic (74.5%), 116 had a family history (49.4%), 88 were hypertensive (37.4%), 62 obese (26.4%) and 45 diabetic (19.1%). More patients identified smoking (53.6%) and hypercholesterolaemia (55.3%) as risk factors as compared to hypertension (43%), family history (42.5%), diabetes (14.5%) or obesity (13.6%). A majority of the patients identified their own risk factors correctly. More than 95% of the patients were taking aspirin/clopidogrel and/or a statin. The main sources of information for these patients were hospitals, general practitioners, and booklets. Risk factor awareness in patients undergoing CABG is unsatisfactory. Nearly 95% of patients are taking aspirin/clopidogrel and/or statins, however, just over half realise their role in secondary prevention. For secondary prevention to be effective, more needs to be done to provide patients with necessary information.