Relationship between health status and lifestyle factors in patients with cardiovascular diseases

Background: The need to study behavioral patterns associated with lifestyle modification is evidenced not only by the high global mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases, but also by the growing burden of cardiovascular risk factors.

Our objective was to assess the dynamics of risk factors in people with different health status and the role of healthy lifestyle recommendations in lifestyle changes.

 Materials and methods: The first stage of the study was conducted in 2016 and included 1,600 respondents while the second was in 2019 involving 991 respondents, which were then divided into three groups by their health status: apparently healthy, those who developed an atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) during the observation period, and those already sick (initial CVD cases). The participants were examined and surveyed for the main cardiovascular risk factors, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, including its atherogenic lipoprotein, smoking, body mass index, and past illnesses. Lifestyle modification following the receipt of healthy lifestyle recommendations was assessed by survey.

Results: The most pronounced dynamics of risk factors was revealed among those who developed a CVD in the course of observation: cholesterol decreased from 5.7 to 5.2 mmol/L, p = 0.005, its atherogenic lipoprotein – from 4.3 to 3.4 mmol/L, p < 0.001, systolic blood pressure – from 144 to 128 mmHg, p < 0.001, and the body mass index – from 30.8 to 30.7 kg/m2 , p = 0.255. Most patients from this group (59.3 %) received healthy lifestyle recommendations and the proportions of those who followed them and modified their lifestyle were higher than in other groups (39.0 % and 54.7 %, respectively; p < 0.001). In the group of apparently healthy individuals, lifestyle recommendations were given to 27.4 % members; yet, this group was noted for a high prevalence of lifestyle self-modification (23.8 %). Among those who already suffered from a CVD at the beginning, the proportion of patients who received healthy lifestyle recommendations was 1.5 times lower (38.3 %) compared to the group of patients who developed the disease, p < 0.001.

Conclusion: Those who developed a disease during observation received recommendations for a healthy lifestyle more often and modified it, but the number of such recommendations decreased with disease duration. The decision to modify the lifestyle was more often made by those who were given lifestyle recommendations, while self-modification was less frequent.

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