Article Text
Abstract
Objectives In order to address the substantial increased risk of cardiovascular disease among people with schizophrenia, it is necessary to identify the factors responsible for some of that increased risk. We analysed the extent to which these risk factors were documented in primary care electronic medical records (EMR), and compared their documentation by patient and provider characteristics.
Design Retrospective cohort study.
Setting EMR database of the University of Toronto Practice-Based Research Network Data Safe Haven.
Participants 197 129 adults between 40 and 75 years of age; 4882 with schizophrenia and 192 427 without.
Primary and secondary outcome measures Documentation of cardiovascular disease risk factors (age, sex, smoking history, presence of diabetes, blood pressure, whether a patient is currently on medication to reduce blood pressure, total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol).
Results Documentation of cardiovascular risk factors was more complete among people with schizophrenia (74.5% of whom had blood pressure documented at least once in the last 2 years vs 67.3% of those without, p>0.0001). Smoking status was not documented in 19.8% of those with schizophrenia and 20.8% of those without (p=0.0843). Factors associated with improved documentation included older patients (OR for ages 70–75 vs 45–49=3.51, 95% CI 3.26 to 3.78), male patients (OR=1.39, 95% CI 1.33 to 1.45), patients cared for by a female provider (OR=1.52, 95% CI 1.12 to 2.07) and increased number of encounters (OR for ≥10 visits vs 3–5 visits=1.53, 95% CI 1.46 to 1.60).
Conclusions Documentation of cardiovascular risk factors was better among people with schizophrenia than without, although overall documentation was inadequate. Efforts to improve documentation of risk factors are warranted in order to facilitate improved management.
- health informatics
- cardiology
- mental health
- primary care
- preventive medicine
- schizophrenia & psychotic disorders
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Footnotes
Twitter @bradenoneill
Contributors BO, SK, BA, FS, RM, MK and MG contributed to the initial conception of the study. BO, SK, BA and RM made substantial contributions to the statistical methodology, analysis and data interpretation. BO and SK wrote the first draft of the manuscript. BO, SK, BA, FS, MK and MG provided substantial revisions to the manuscript.
Funding This study was funded by the Foundation for Advancing Family Medicine of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (2018 Janus Research Grant). BO completed this work during a Research Fellowship with the Medical Psychiatry Alliance, Toronto, Ontario. BO and MG receive salary support from North York General Hospital and the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval Ethics approval was obtained from the North York General Hospital Research Ethics Board (approval number 18-0006).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request. Data from this study are held by the University of Toronto Practice-Based Research Network; ethics approval for this study does not allow unrestricted public access to the data. Please contact the corresponding author for information on how to access.