Awareness of your risk of heart problems isn’t sufficient for action, a new study found. Researchers analyzed 45,443 responses from participants of the 2011-12 Canadian Community Health Survey. The survey included questions on eight established risk factors for a heart attack: smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, stress, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of physical activity and poor diet. While most surveyed patients agreed with their need for health improvements, over half cited barriers to those improvements, which included work schedule, family responsibilities and lack of self-discipline. Over 17% of participants with the greatest risk (5 or more risk factors) did not feel a need to improve their health. Study authors say these results highlight a need for a better understanding of personalized motivating factors, in order to help at-risk Canadians make lifestyle changes necessary to improve their health.
Authors:
F. Daniel Ramirez, Yue Chen, Pietro Di Santo, Trevor Simard, Pouya Motazedian, Benjamin Hibbert
Canadian author:
F. Daniel Ramirez, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute in Ottawa, ON
Original paper published in Journal of the American Heart Association on May 3, 2017.
