Do doctors accurately assess coronary risk in their patients?
Objective: To evaluate the ability of doctors in primary care to assess risk patients’ risk of coronary heart disease. Design: Questionnaire survey. Setting: Continuing medical education meetings, Ontario and Quebec, Canada. Subjects: Community based doctors who agreed to enrol in the coronary health assessment study. Main outcome measure: Ratings of coronary risk factors and estimates by doctors of relative and absolute coronary risk of two hypothetical patients and the “average” 40 year old Canadian man and 70 year old Canadian woman. Results: 253 doctors answered the questionnaire. For 30 year olds the doctors rated cigarette smoking as the most important risk factor and raised serum triglyceride concentrations as the least important; for 70 year old patients they rated diabetes as the most important risk factor and raised serum triglyceride concentrations as the least important. They rated each individual risk factor as significantly less important for 70 year olds than for 30 year
