Assessment of Risk Factors in Patients with Myocardial Infarction and Coronary Artery Disease: A Needs Assessment Study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a major cause of death worldwide. The objective of this study was to determine the most important behavioral (inadequate nutrition, low physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption) and non-behavioral (stress, high blood sugar, dyslipidemia, hypertension and obesity) risk factors for CVD among CVD patients hospitalized in Kermanshah Heart Hospital. This was a needs assessment study aiming at designing interventions for reducing CVD risk factors.
In this cross-sectional study 402 CAD patients (60.4% males and 39.6% females) were selected by consecutive sampling from among those hospitalized in Imam Ali Hospital for the first time. Data were collected using the Iranian version of WHO Stepwise questionnaire and the patients’ files and analyzed using the SPSS-16 software.
The mean (±SD) age of the patients was 54.2 (±8.8) years. About 73% of them had a poor diet and 46.5% had low physical activity; in addition, 36% of the men had consumed alcohol in the previous year and 26.1% were smokers. Non-behavioral risk factors were quite common too. The proportions of the patients suffering from diabetes, hypertension and overweight-plus-obesity and abdominal obesity were 49.3%, 48.0%, 54.7% and 61.0%, respectively. Finally, 43.3% of the patients had high stress, 31.0% were hypertriglyceridemic and in another 21% hypercholesterolemia was seen.
Based on the findings it can be concluded that, as compared to other risk factors, imbalanced nutrition was more prevalent common among the patients. Another major risk factor was obesity, particularly abdominal obesity. In addition, blood glucose disorders were more common than dyslipidemia.