Community health center patients' response to and beliefs about outreach promoting clinical preventive services

We sought community health center (CHC) patients' feedback regarding an outreach intervention promoting primary prevention of cardiovascular disease to patients at increased risk. We performed a telephone survey that assessed whether patients recalled receiving the intervention, what actions occurred in response to the intervention, and patient attitudes regarding receipt of preventive service messages from their CHC. Participants (n = 80) were 89% male, and 59% were black. Among the 88% of respondents who reported a healthcare visit, 84% reported a discussion about cholesterol or heart disease risk with their provider, of these 44% reported a statin was recommended and 89% reported currently taking it. Participants reported high acceptability of receiving preventive service messages, but were less likely to agree that they wanted to receive preventive service messages via text or email compared to other modes of contact. Our results show that outreach programs to promote indicated preventive services were viewed positively by this patient group. We also identified areas where the CVD prevention program may have lost effectiveness.
Highlights • Health center patients usually had clinic visits following preventive CVD outreach. • Patient-identified barriers to making a visit or taking medication were infrequent. • Cholesterol-lowering medication was recommended less than half of the time. • Health center outreach promoting preventive care services was viewed favorably. • Text or email messages were less preferred than phone, mail or in-person outreach.