Areas of improvement in anticoagulant safety. Data from the CACAO study, a cohort in general practice.

Real-world studies on anticoagulants are mostly performed on health insurance databases, limited to reported events, and sometimes far from every-day issues in family practice. We assess the presence of data for safe monitoring of oral anticoagulants in general practice, and compare patients' knowledge of taking an anticoagulant between vitamin K antagonists (VKA) and direct anticoagulants (DOAC), and the general practitioner's perception of their adherence to anticoagulation.The CACAO study is a national cohort study, conducted by general practitioners on ambulatory patients under oral anticoagulant. In the first phase, investigators provided safety data available from medical records at inclusion. They also evaluated patients' knowledge about anticoagulation and graded their perception of patients' adherence.Between April and December 2014, 463 general practitioners included 7154 patients. Renal and hepatic function tests were respectively unavailable in 109 (7.5%) and 359 (24.7%) DOAC patients. Among patients with atrial fibrillation, 345 patients (6.9%) had a questionable indication of anticoagulant (CHA2DS2-Vasc