Cardiovascular Risk Awareness and Calculated 10-Year Risk Among Female Employees at Taibah University 2019

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the most common cause of death and disability worldwide. Saudi Arabia, one of the middle-income countries has a proportional CVD mortality rate of 37%. Knowledge about CVD and its modifiable risk factors is a vital pre-requisite to change the health attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyle practices of individuals. Therefore, we intended to assess the employee knowledge about risk of CVD, symptoms of heart attacks, and stroke, and to calculate their future 10-years CVD risk. An epidemiological, cross-sectional, community-facility based study was conducted. The women aged ≥40 years who are employees of Taibah University, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah were recruited. A screening self-administrative questionnaire was distributed to the women to exclude those who are not eligible. In total, 222 women met the inclusion criteria and were invited for the next step for the determination of CVD risk factors by using WHO STEPS questionnaire: It is used for the surveillance of non-communicable disease risk factor, such as CVD. In addition, the anthropometric measurements and biochemical measurements were done. Based on the identified atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk factors and laboratory testing results, risk calculated used the Framingham Study Cardiovascular Disease (10-year) Risk Assessment. Data were analyzed using GraphPad Prism 7 software (GraphPad Software, CA, USA). The result showed the mean age of study sample was 55.6 ± 9.0 years. There was elevated percentage of obesity and rise in abdominal circumference among the women. Hypertension (HTN) was a considerable chronic disease among the participants where more than half of the sample had it, i.e., 53%. According to the ASCVD risk estimator, the study participants were distributed into four groups: 63.1% at low risk, 20.2% at borderline risk, 13.5% at intermediate risk, and 3.2% at high risk. A comparison between these categories based on the CVD 10-year risk estimator indicated that there were significant variations between the low-risk group and the intermediate and high-risk groups (P = 0.02 and P = 0.001, respectively). The multivariate analysis detected factors related to CVD risk for women who have an intermediate or high risk of CVD, such as age, smoking, body mass index (BMI), unhealthy diet, blood pressure (BP) measurements, and family history of CVD (P < 0.05). The present study reports limited knowledge and awareness of CVD was 8.6 that is considered as low knowledge. In conclusion, the present study among the university sample in Madinah reported limited knowledge and awareness of CVD risk. These findings support the need for an educational program to enhance the awareness of risk factors and prevention of CVD.

Saudi Heart Association Guidelines on Best Practices in the Management of Chronic Coronary Syndromes

“…Unfortunately knowledge and awareness of CVD and CCS risk factors remains relatively limited in the Saudi population [ 112 , 113 ], highlighting the need for population-wide as well as individualized awareness and educational interventions to promote a healthy lifestyle.…”

Coronary artery disease risk factors in Saudi Arabia: Knowledge, awareness and prevalence assessment

“…In the Hail region, Saudi Arabia a cross sectional study carried out among 537 participants revealed that Awareness of TV watching (88.5%), smoking (87.9%), lack of physical activities (78.4%) and family history of CAD (74.7%) as the leading cause of CAD has a distinguished higher percentage among the studied population however the family history of diabetes mellitus (51.6%), having diabetes mellitus (57.7%), family history of hypertension (65.7%) and family history of hyperlipidemia (69.1%) have the lowest percentages (Shahid et al, 2020) In Medina, Saudi Arabia. A descriptive cross-sectional community-based study was conducted among 222 of the women aged 40 years and above who are current employees at Taibah University; the results show that participants shown knowledge about unhealthy (Diabetic, 61%), (stress/anxiety, 67%), (lack of exercise, 71%), (hypertension, 80%), (overweight, 79%), (smoke, 77%), (high cholesterol, 75%) and (diet 85%) as a most common CVD risk factor (Qasem Surrati et al, 2021).…”

Factors Associated with Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Employees at a Portuguese Higher Education Institution

“…We compared our results with those of similar studies carried out worldwide in King Faisal University, University of Jos, Taibah University, and University of Brasilia [ 12 , 59 , 60 , 61 ]; the prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia was considerably higher in our study than in Taibah University (43,2% vs. 23.4%), while the prevalence of hypertension was lower than in the King Faisal University, University of Jos, Taibah University, and University of Brasilia studies (19.6% vs. 22.1%, 48.5%, 52.7%, and 27.5%, respectively). The same studies found higher prevalence of smoking and sedentarism than in our population.…”

“…In addition, there is an increasing tendency towards the prevalence of CVD in developed countries, due to increased salt consumption, reduced physical activity, and lowered levels of health literacy [ 8 ]. However, university-staff-based studies have shown that they share very similar risk factors for CVD such as obesity [ 9 ], physical inactivity [ 10 , 11 ], and smoking [ 12 ]. Recently, there was a study about the prevalence of hypertension in Brazil, which showed that 58.3% of university employees self-reported obesity as the most frequently occurring comorbidity [ 13 ].…”