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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of premature death, with hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia as major risk factors. Effective self-management (SM) is crucial for controlling these conditions and improving quality of life. This study examines stakeholders' experiences and expectations of SM education to enhance program development., Methods: This study employed a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore the perspectives of three stakeholder groups: 19 patients with hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and dyslipidemia, 11 primary healthcare providers, and five provincial health policymakers and managers. Data were collected via semi-structured patient interviews and focus group discussions(FGDs) with health professionals. Coding and analysis were conducted separately using Corbin and Strauss principles with ATLAS. ti version 9.0 software., Results: Most patients were women (68%) aged 50-60 years (37%), with education levels from illiterate to master's degree; 32% had completed primary school. Most were housewives (52%), and 12 had multiple chronic diseases. Healthcare providers included six community health workers and five primary care physicians, with average experience of 12 and 19 years, respectively. Health policymakers and managers averaged 25 years of experience. Patient interviews and FGDs resulted in 12 and 13 subthemes, respectively, with five subthemes common to both sources. These subthemes were grouped into broader main themes, including "effective content design," "effective presentation and delivery," "characteristics and conditions of involved parties," and "educational needs," collectively reflect the central concept of "effective self-management education"., Conclusion: Although the core concept and its main themes were evident and consistent across stakeholder groups, significant variations in subthemes from each stakeholder emerged. This underscores the importance of considering diverse viewpoints and highlights that, while overarching concepts may seem uniform, exploring the details of stakeholder perspectives is crucial for understanding their nuanced opinions. Effective education should integrate these insights, focusing on tailored communication, interactivity, and active monitoring., Competing Interests: No conflicts of interest were present in conducting this research, as confirmed by all authors., (Copyright: © 2024 Soleimani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic's mental health consequences remain unknown., Aim: To assess the mental health status of ambulatory cardiometabolic patients during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Spanish speaking Latin American countries., Methods: Cardiometabolic patients without COVID-19 evidence in 13 Latin American countries answered a survey between June 15th and July 15th, 2020. The Diagnosis Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition was used to identify the presence of major depressive symptoms., Results: The sample included 4216 patients, 1590 (37.71%; IC95% 36.24-39.19) were considered suffering major depression. Female gender, consuming ≥5 medications day, physical activity <100 minutes weekly, low fruits and vegetables intake, poor treatment adherence, reduced food consumption were independently associated to the presence of major depressive symptoms., Conclusions: The CorCOVID Latam Psy study showed that one-third of the Latin American Spanish speaking population is suffering from major depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 outbreak., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Aim: Accumulating evidence reveals that sedentary behavior is associated with mortality and cardiometabolic disease; however, there are potential age and sex differences in sedentary behavior and health outcomes that have not been adequately addressed. This study aimed to determine the association of sedentary behavior with cardiometabolic diseases such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, and its risk factors in a large Japanese population according to age and sex., Methods: Using data from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort Study obtained from baseline surveys, data of 62,754 participants (27,930 males, 34,824 females) were analyzed. This study uses a cross-sectional design and self-administered questionnaires to evaluate sedentary time and anamnesis. For the logistic regression analysis, sedentary time ＜5 h/day was used as the reference and then adjusted for age, research areas, leisure-time metabolic equivalents, and alcohol and smoking status. From the analysis of anthropometric and blood examinations, 35,973 participants (17,109 males, 18,864 females) were analyzed., Results: For hypertension and diabetes, sedentary time was associated with a significantly higher proportion of male participants. Both sexes were associated with a significantly higher proportion of participants with dyslipidemia. Participants who had longer sedentary time tended to have increased levels of blood pressure, triglycerides, and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and decreased levels of HDL-C, especially in the 60-69 years group., Conclusions: Independent of leisure-time physical activity, sedentary time was associated with cardiometabolic diseases in a large Japanese population classified by age and sex. Our findings indicate that regularly interrupting and replacing sedentary time may contribute to better physical health-related quality of life.

Objectives : Dyslipidemia is one of the risk factors for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular events decrease with decreasing LDL-C levels and all guidelines emphasize the importance of LDL-C lowering. However, implementation in real life is suboptimal. This study aimed to evaluate the treatment approaches to the dyslipidemia of physicians. Methods : This study was conducted as an online survey for internal medicine specialists and residents. The survey included questions on the physicians' demographics, their attitudes toward dyslipidemia management in three different case scenarios and questions. The physicians were asked to indicate their treatment and guideline preferences in the three cases. Results : Among the 366 participants 67.5% were internal medicine specialists and 18.9% were internal medicine residents. Fourteen percent of physicians did not use guidelines in clinical practice. Five percent of specialists and 10.1% of residents doubted the necessity of dyslipidemia treatment, 30% of both specialists and residents were affected by the patient's reluctance. The specialists were more likely to state that reaching the target LDL-C should be a priority compared to the residents (p = 0.003). Most physicians (58.7%) treated the patients according to the guideline recommendations if the patients were at high risk. They were less likely to get to guideline recommendation goals if the patients were at low risk (29.8%). Conclusion : Despite overwhelming evidence, some physicians did not use guidelines and some physicians doubted the necessity of dyslipidemia treatment. A significant proportion of physicians were affected by the patient's reluctance. There is a clear need to educate physicians about the importance of guidelines.

The study aimed to evaluate the effect of psychosocial aspects on self-reporting of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The hypotheses were that psychosocial aspects have a direct or indirect effect on health behaviors, cardiovascular disease risk factors (CVDRFs) and CVDs. A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted with a representative sample of 1100 adults from the urban area of a medium-sized municipality in southern Brazil. Structured interviews were conducted using a standardized and pre-tested questionnaire. The psychosocial aspects included scales of resilience, quality of life, sense of coherence and social support. The outcomes were CVDs and CVDRFs measured by single items asking participants whether a physician had stated that they had heart disease, high blood pressure or high cholesterol/triglycerides or were overweight (BMI≥25 kg/m 2 ). Data analysis was based on structural equation models. The final model exhibited good fit : (χ 2 [57] = 155, p < 0.001, root-mean-square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.042, confirmatory fit index [CFI] = 0.902 and standardized root-mean-square residual [SRMR] = 0.042). Consistent with our direct effect hypothesis, favorable psychosocial aspects were inversely associated with CVDRFS (β = -0.15, p = 0.011) and with CVDs (β = -0.10, p = 0.048). The indirect effect through health behaviors was not confirmed. The findings suggest that psychosocial aspects may influence the presence of self-reported CVDs or CVDRFS.

Background: Whether depression before diagnosis of dyslipidemia is associated with higher cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among newly diagnosed dyslipidemia patients is yet unclear., Methods: The study population consisted of 72,235 newly diagnosed dyslipidemia patients during 2003 to 2012 from the National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening Cohort of South Korea. Newly diagnosed dyslipidemia patients were then detected for pre-existing depression within 3 years before dyslipidemia diagnosis. Starting from 2 years after the diagnosis date, patients were followed up for CVD until 2015. Adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for CVD were calculated by Cox proportional hazards regression., Results: Compared to dyslipidemia patients without depression, those with depression had higher risk for CVD (aHR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.09 to 1.41). Similarly, pre-existing depression was associated with increased risk for stroke (aHR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.53). The risk for CVD among depressed dyslipidemia patients for high (aHR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.90), medium (aHR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.52), and low (aHR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.50) statin compliance patients tended to be increased compared to patients without pre-existing dyslipidemia. The risk-elevating effect of depression on CVD tended to be preserved regardless of subgroups of smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and body mass index., Conclusion: Dyslipidemia patients with pre-existing depression had increased risk for CVD. Future studies that determine CVD risk after management of depression among dyslipidemia patients are needed., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported., (Copyright © 2020 Korean Diabetes Association.)

Hypertension and dyslipidemia are often suboptimally managed in teens with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Teen and parent perspectives on hypertension and dyslipidemia management need further study to enhance the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor management plans. We sought to describe barriers to and strategies for CVD risk factor management. Teens with T1D with and without dyslipidemia and parents of teens with T1D with and without dyslipidemia underwent one-on-one semi-structured interviews conducted by trained personnel at a diabetes center; interviews continued until thematic saturation was reached. Teens and parents of teens described their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding heart health and CVD risk factors (hypertension and dyslipidemia). Researchers undertook a content analysis and categorized central themes as strategies and barriers. In total, 22 teens and 25 parents completed interviews. Teens were 17.4 ± 1.7 years old with T1D duration 9.7 ± 4.0 years; 45% had dyslipidemia. Parents were between 41 and 60 years old, 84% were mothers, and 40% had teens with dyslipidemia. Barriers to heart health included an obesity-promoting environment, parental distrust of medications, and limited teen knowledge about hypertension and dyslipidemia. Strategies included specific and realistic guidance from providers, family support of teen lifestyle management, and having exercise partners. While teen and parent perspectives were often similar, some themes applied only to teens or parents. Central themes provide actionable guidance to enhance hypertension and dyslipidemia management. Providers should consider teen and parent perspectives when managing CVD risk factors to enhance engagement with CVD risk management., (© 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Patient preferences are key parameters to evaluate benefit-harm balance of statins for primary prevention but they are not readily available to guideline developers and decision makers. Our study aimed to elicit patient preferences for benefit and harm outcomes related to use of statins for primary cardiovascular disease prevention and to examine how the preferences differ across economically and socio-culturally different environments., Methods: We conducted preference-eliciting surveys using best-worst scaling designed with a balanced incomplete-block design (BIBD) on 13 statins-related outcomes on 220 people in Ethiopia and Switzerland. The participants made tradeoff decisions and selected the most and least worrisome outcomes concurrently from each scenario generated using the BIBD. The design yielded 34,320 implied paired-comparisons and 2860 paired-responses as unit of analysis for eliciting the preferences that were analyzed using a conditional-logit model on a relative scale and surface under the cumulative ranking curve from multivariate random-effects meta-analysis model on a scale of 0 to 1., Results: There was high internal consistency of responses and minimal amount of measurement error in both surveys. Severe stroke was the most worrisome outcome with a ceiling preference of 1 (on 0 to 1 scale) followed by severe myocardial infarction, 0.913 (95% CI, 0.889-0.943), and cancer, 0.846 (0.829-0.855); while treatment discontinuation, 0.090 (0.023-0.123), and nausea/headache, 0.060 (0.034-0.094) were the least worrisome outcomes. Preferences were similar between Ethiopia and Switzerland with overlapping uncertainty intervals and concordance correlation of 0.97 (0.90-0.99)., Conclusions: Our study provides much needed empirical evidence on preferences that help clinical guidelines consider for weighing the benefit and harm outcomes when recommending for or against statins for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The preferences are consistent across the disparate settings; however, we recommend inclusion of more countries in future studies to ensure the generalizability of the preferences to all environments.

Background: Cardiovascular (CV) disease mortality is increased in diabetes mellitus (DM) and metabolic syndrome (MS), conditions which share CV risk factors., Aim: The purpose of this study was to assess understanding of CV risk by patients with DM and/or MS diagnosed less than 1 year before and seen in primary care. Perception by these patients of their health state is also analysed., Design: A multicentre, observational study in subjects diagnosed with DM diagnosed less than 1 year before and/or with MS, in whom agreement between CV risk perceived by patients and assessed by physicians was analysed., Methods: Medical registry data and a survey of health status and perceived risk by patients and physicians. Agreement of patient perception of CV risk with perception of the physician in charge and with the CV risk established with clinical registry data was assessed. Self-perceived health status was also studied., Results: A total of 150 physicians recruited 681 patients (71.5% with DM and 28.5% with MS) aged 60.8 ± 10.8 years (55.8% males). Good or excellent health were reported by 41.3% and 0.9%, respectively. Inability to give an estimate of CV risk was found in 39.8%. Agreement between the CV risks perceived by patients and evaluated by chart was poor: kappa index 0.145 (95% CI 0.101-0.189), p < 0.001. Agreement between CV risk perceived by patients and clinical data in the medical registry was weak: kappa index 0.165 (95% CI 0.117-0.213), p < 0.001., Conclusions: Patients with recently diagnosed DM and/or with MS have a poor awareness of their CV risk and 42.2% of them think that they have good or excellent health.

Objective: To examine the influence of aggressive behaviour scores on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors throughout childhood., Methods: This study utilized cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (n = 2900). Aggressive behaviour scores were derived from the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18(CBCL), Youth Self-Report/11-18 (YSR) and Teacher Report Form/6-18 (TRF). CVD risk factors included body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, fasting lipids and homeostasis model of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)., Results: Girls with higher aggressive behaviour scores had higher BMI from 10 years of age (P ≤ 0.001), higher BMI trajectories throughout childhood (P = 0.0003) and at 14 years higher HOMA-IR (P = 0.008). At the 14-year survey, this equated to a difference of 1.7 kg/m2 in the predicted BMI between the extreme CBCL scores in girls (top 5% (CBCL ≥ 17) vs. CBCL score = 0). Boys with higher aggressive behaviour scores had higher BMI at 5 years (P = 0.002), lower diastolic pressure at 14 years (P = 0.002) and lower systolic blood pressure trajectories throughout childhood (P = 0.016)., Conclusion: Aggressive behaviour influences BMI from early childhood in girls but not boys. If this association is causal, childhood offers the opportunity for early behavioural intervention for obesity prevention., (© 2012 The Authors. Pediatric Obesity © 2012 International Association for the Study of Obesity.)

Objective: To evaluate quality of life in a population that attended a specific community event on health care education, and to investigate the association of their quality of life with the presence of cardiovascular risk factors, Introduction: Interest in health-related quality of life is growing worldwide as a consequence of increasing rates of chronic disease. However, little is known about the association between quality of life and cardiovascular risk factors., Methods: This study included 332 individuals. Demographics, blood pressure, body mass index, and casual glycemia were evaluated. The brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire on quality of life was given to them. The medians of the scores obtained for the physical, psychological, emotional, and environmental domains were used as cutoffs to define "higher" and "lower" scores. A multinomial logistic regression model was used to define the parameters associated with lower scores., Results: Diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and obesity were associated with lower scores in the physical domain. Dyslipidemia was also associated with lower scores in the psychological domain. Male gender and regular physical activity had protective effects on quality of life. Aging was inversely associated with decreased quality of life in the environmental domain., Conclusion: The presence of cardiovascular risk factors is related to a decreased quality of life. Conversely, male gender and regular physical activity had protective effects on quality of life. These findings suggest that exercising should be further promoted by health-related public programs, with a special focus on women.

Lifestyle, illness and treatment factors in people with bipolar disorder (BD) may confer additional risk of morbidity and mortality to the increasing rates of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular mortality in the general population.The aim of this review is to examine whether the risk of obesity and related morbidity and mortality are raised in BD, and possible contributory effects of lifestyle, illness and treatment factors to this risk.Systematic search of Medline and Cochrane Collaboration for relevant studies followed by a critical review of literature was carried out.Mortality from cardiovascular causes and pulmonary embolism (standardized mortality ratio approximately 2.0), and morbidity from obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus may be increased in BD compared to the general population. Reduced exercise and poor diet, frequent depressive episodes, comorbidity with substance misuse and poor quality general medical care contribute to the additional risk of these medical problems in people with BD. There is no evidence that patients with BD are more sensitive than other patients to weight gain and medical problems associated with long-term use of psychotropic medication; in fact long-term treatment with lithium, antipsychotics and tricyclic antidepressants may reduce overall mortality. Psychiatrists, general practitioners and other health professionals should work together to systematically assess and manage weight gain and related medical problems to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with obesity in BD. There is insufficient evidence to associate any of these factors with specific drug treatments. More research is required to understand how BD changes the risk for physical health comorbidity.