Publication:

Risk factors for cardiovascular diseases among people attending outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital

Background The rise in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) has been particularly alarming in India, with a significant increase in both prevalence and mortality rates over the past few decades. Understanding the risk factors associated with cardiovascular diseases is crucial for developing effective prevention and intervention strategies.

Methods After ethical approval, this cross-sectional study was conducted in outpatient department of Gian Sagar Medical College and Hospital of district Patiala, Punjab during October 2023 to November 2023. Two hundred patients were selected by non-probability sampling technique. Inclusion criteria were patients who were willing to participate and more than 25 years of age. The patients who were already diagnosed with hypertension and taking anti hypertension medicines were excluded from study. After extensive review, questionnaire was prepared which was divided into two parts: demographic performa and clinical proforma. Socio demo graphic data of patient includes variables that is age, gender, marital status, education, employment, socioeconomic status, history of smoking and alcohol, religion, and past history of heart disease, meal frequency, exercise, type of diet, oil consumption, salt and water consumption. Clinical variables are body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), comorbidity history, history of dyslipidaemia, and waist hip ratio were included. Tool got validated by experts from field of nursing and medicine. Reliability checked by Cronbach’s alpha and it was 0.80. Permission for data collection was taken from hospital administration. After obtaining consent from patient, data was collected from patients. Collected data was analysed by using statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) version 21 for windows by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings were presented by tables and figures.

Results The most significant risk factor identified was a lack of exercise, with 52.0% of the participants reported that they did not engage in regular physical activity. This was closely followed by pre-obesity/obesity, which affected 54.0% of the participants, and a higher waist-to-hip ratio, noted in 51.0% of the population. It was observed that while males are more prone to multiple risk factors, the fraction of females with a high number of risk factors is significant (p value of 0.000).

Conclusions Particularly physical inactivity and obesity is the risk factor of developing cardiovascular diseases. The age and gender distribution data indicate that these risk factors are present even in younger populations and are more prevalent in females.