Physicians’ attitudes towards hypercholesterolemia in primary care

Abstract EN

Objectives: To assess the current attitude and practice of primary health care (PHC)-physicians regarding hypercholesterolemia and its management.

Methods: We conducted survey of 94 of 106 (88.7% response rate) primary health care physicians from a randomly selected sample of primary health care centers in Riyadh.

The questionnaire contained queries about socio-demographic data, attitude, and practice.

Different scores were allocated for attitude and practice.

Univariate and multivariate analysis was done using STAT Pac-Gold analysis packages.

Results: Hypercholestrolemia is regarded as an important health problem in Saudi Arabia in the opinion of 92.6% of physicians.

96% believe that the role of screening is important and 77% were regularly screening their patients.

85% believe that a cholesterol level of > 6.2 mmol/1 is the cut-off point for medical intervention.

47.9% of the respondents have scored good overall attitude, and 55.3% for good practice.

Younger age, confidence, and satisfaction were associated with good attitude, while confidence and experience of exposure to cases were associated with good practice.

Conclusions and Recommendations: This study has found the existence of inappropriate attitudes and practices among PHC physicians in Riyadh City regarding hypercholesterolemia management.

Improving the attitudes and practices will require the improvement of the PHC - system as a whole.