Cardiovascular risk factors for different types of psychiatric pathologies. A correlative study

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and psychiatric severe illnesses (PSI) are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide and the link between CVD and PSI has been studied for decades. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of classical cardiovascular risk factors (age, sex, smoking status, alcohol, arterial hypertension, lipid profile) and Framingham Score for the 10-year risk of death from cardiovascular diseases, in different types of severe mental illnesses. On the basis of the premise that patients with psychiatric illness have a life expectancy of 10-17.5 years less than the general population, predominantly associated with cardiovascular disease, we conducted a retrospective study of 165 patients admitted in the psychiatric clinic for a period of 1 year. Cardiovascular risk factors as well as other risk factors for cardiovascular disease (presence of associated medication, renal function, alcohol use) were calculated for all 165 patients. The mean systolic blood pressure was 136.7 mmHg (patient group) compared with 130 mmHg (control group); total cholesterol was 244 mg/dL (patient group) compared with 187.2 mg/dL (control group); and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol was 36.7 mg/dL (patient group) compared with 46.4 mg/dL (control group). In addition, the Framingham score was 12.7 in the group of PSI patients compared with 5.47 in the control group. According to our results, the patients with severe mental illness were clearly all at an increased risk of cardiovascular-related death compared with the control group, odds ratio (OR) = 4.030. The highest OR was found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (OR = 62.171), but also in patients with severe depression (OR = 4.371), and patients with schizophrenia (OR = 3.288). On the basis of these results, clinicians should screen all psychiatric patients for increased body mass index, elevated blood pressure, and cholesterol, and begin medical treatment and non-medical intervention to decrease this cardiovascular risk as soon as possible.