Treatment and control of cardiovascular risk in primary care in Spain.: The PREVENCAT study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The PREVENCAT study was designed to estimate the control of the main cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) and their treatment in a sample of population having the diagnoses of hypertension (HT), type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) or hypercholesterolemia (HC) who was attended by primary care physicians in Spain. PATIENTS AND METHOD: Cross-sectional study in patients with HT, DM2 and/or HC, who were consecutively recruited. We describe the treatments for HT, DM2 and HC and analyze and the association between several potential predictors and the control of these CVRF. RESULTS: 2,649 patients were included in the study. 95% of HT patients were under treatment, as were 84% of DM2 and 71.4% of HC patients; most common drugs were diuretics, sulphonylureas and statins, respectively. Monotherapy was more frequent than combined therapy for hypertension treatment. The frequency of HT and DM2 treatment was similar among the subgroups defined by the presence or absence of the other two diagnoses. However, HC treatment was more common in the presence of DM2 (p = 0.001). Age, previous cardiovascular disease (CVD), DM2, obesity and sedentarism were all predictors of poor blood pressure control despite drug treatment. Age previous CVD, HT and sedentarism were predictors of poor HC control. CONCLUSIONS: CVRF treatment was high although heterogeneous and not based on the best available evidence. DM2, previous CVD and obesity were associated with insufficient blood pressure control.