Does Your Heart Forecast help practitioner understanding and confidence with cardiovascular disease risk communication?

Abstract

Introduction: Explaining what cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk means and engaging in shared decision-making regarding risk factor modification is challenging. An electronic CVD risk visualisation tool containing multiple risk communication strategies (Your Heart Forecast) was designed in 2009.

Aim: To assess whether this tool facilitated explaining CVD risk to primary care patients.

Methods: Health professionals who accessed a Primary Health Organisation website or who attended educational peer groups over a three-month period were invited to complete questionnaires before and after viewing a four-minute video about the tool. Respondents were asked to make an informed guess of the CVD risk of a 35-year-old patient (actual CVD risk 5%) and rate the following sentence as being true or false: 'If there were 100 people like Mr Andrews, five would go on to have a cardiac event in the next five years.' They also were asked to rank their understanding of CVD risk and confidence in explaining the concept to patients.

Results: Fifty health professionals (37 GPs, 12 practice nurses, one other) completed before and after questionnaires. Respondents' CVD risk estimates pre-video ranged from <5% to 25% and nine rated the sentence as being false. After the video, all respondents answered these questions correctly. Personal rankings from zero to 10 about understanding CVD risk and confidence in explaining risk reduced in range and shifted towards greater efficacy.

Discussion: Whether this tool facilitates discussions of CVD risk with patients and improves patient understanding and lifestyle behaviour needs to be evaluated in a randomised trial.