Abstract

Objective To determine the clinical characteristics and management of patients according to the presence of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) within a primary care setting. Methods IBERICAN is a longitudinal, observational, multicenter study that is currently including subjects aged 18 to 85 years attending primary care setting in Spain. The enrolled cohort will undergo an annual visit for at least 5 years. In this article, the baseline characteristics of the first 4,304 patients are reported. Results Compared with patients without CVD, those patients with CVD were older, more frequently men, and had more CV risk factors and target organ damage. Less than 60% of patients achieved blood pressure goals, < 10% LDL-cholesterol targets and 65% of diabetics HbA1c goals. More than 55% of patients had none or only one risk factor adequately controlled. CV risk factors control was independent of the presence of CVD. The CVD group showed higher use of prescribed drugs, but less than ideal. Conclusions Our study shows a poor level of CV risk factors control in the overall studied population. This observation was even more significant when applied to patients with established CVD. Our data strongly suggest the need for a more intense use of combined therapies in order to achieve an adequately control of CV risk factors within the Spanish primary care setting.

Authors and Affiliations