Abandonment to therapeutic diet on patients at risk cardiovascular in a health care clinic.

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death among adults and measures to reverse this situation go through changes in lifestyle, among them adopt healthy eating through professional counseling. To do this we need to keep the patient engaged in treatment, and the abandonment of treatment is an important risk factor in this population.
Objectives: To assess abandonment to dietary treatment of patients with cardiovascular risk treated on an outpatient basis, and identify the reasons for the abandonment of treatment.
Methods: Participants were patients between 18 and 70 years, of both sexes, who held their first nutritional consultation and had two or more cardiovascular risk factors. A telephone contact was made by applying a questionnaire on the withdrawal of reasons for treatment and encouraging them to return to the health service by checking the return after three months of telephone contact.
Results: Of the 142 patients with cardiovascular risk, 61.26% did not return to the service after the first visit, a percentage similar to that found in other studies, and contacted by telephone 64.37% of them. Regarding the main reasons for the withdrawal, difficulty following the diet and individual/behavioral characteristics of the patient were the aspects that contributed to the abandonment (57.14%), corroborating the findings that show the influence of cultural and socioeconomic factors on the therapeutic adherence. Although 92.86% of patients have been satisfied with the service and 75% have reported interest in resuming treatment, only 5.36% patients returned to service after the phone contact.
Conclusion: There was a high drop-out from nutritional treatment, mainly because of the difficulty of organization required to follow the diet. The motivational intervention was not enough to motivate a return to treatment.