The prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors and the ten-year risk of fatal cardiovascular events in patients with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.

Background: People suffering from schizophrenia have a significantly shorter lifespan compared to the general population. The majority of deaths are caused by physical diseases, including cardiovascular events. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to predict the risk of premature cardiovascular mortality and assess the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors in a sample of Czech patients with schizophrenia and related psychoses.
Subjects and Methods: We reviewed data from 129 subjects treated in an outpatient clinic that specialised in psychoses. The main collected variables included basic physical parameters (height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure), smoking habits, laboratory data (glucose level, serum lipid level) and an electrocardiograph (ECG). We calculated the ten-year risk of fatal cardiovascular events using the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) chart.
Results: The most prevalent risk factors were being overweight (70% of patients had a BMI over 25), dyslipidaemia (70% of patients) and smoking (43% of patients). According to the SCORE diagram, there was a high risk of fatal cardiovascular events over a ten-year period in 10% of the study group. The percentage was even higher (24%) when the latest European guidelines for cardiovascular disease prevention were used to calculate the risk.
Conclusions: Our outcomes indicate even higher cardiometabolic morbidity rates in patients with psychoses than those referenced in the literature.