A real opportunity to modify cardiovascular risk through primary care and prevention: A pilot study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent a major threat to health and primaryprevention outstands as the most e􀀀ective instrument to face this issue,addressing multiple risk factors at a time and influencing behavioral patterns.Community nurses have been involved in many interdisciplinary preventionactivities, resulting in e􀀀ective control of CV risk factors. We conducted a pilotstudy aiming at describing the impact on the CV risk profile of an 18-monthinterdisciplinary intervention on lifestyle habits. From September 2018 to May2020, four general practitioners (GPs) working in the Roman neighborhoodof Torresina recruited patients having a cardiovascular risk score (CRS) equalto or higher than 3% and lower than 20%; those patients were included ina nutritional, physical, and psychological counseling program. Assessmentsof patients’ health status were led at baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months by anutritionist, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, their GPs, and a communitynurse. The CRS was estimated at every examination, based on the ItalianProgetto Cuore algorithm. A total of 76 patients were included (mean age of54.6 years; 33 men and 43 women). Mean CRS showed a significant reductionbetween baseline and 12 months (from 4.9 to 3.8); both total cholesterol andsystolic blood pressure (SBP) significantly decreased at 6 months of follow-up(respectively, from 211.1 to 192 and from 133.1 to 123.1). Nonetheless, thereduction was latermaintained only for SBP. However, during the last 6monthsof the intervention, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, thus, it is not possibleto know how much the results achieved at 18 months were influenced by therestrictive measures introduced by the Italian government. When stratifyingaccording to the presence of hypertension/diabetes and physical activity, nodi􀀀erences in the CRS could be highlighted between the two groups. Our pilotstudy proved that an interdisciplinary counseling intervention program can improve CV risk profile and could be further spread to people that, accordingto their CRS, would benefit more from changes in lifestyles.