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Cost-effectiveness of selective cardiometabolic disease prevention in primary care.

Stol, D.M. Cost-effectiveness of selective cardiometabolic disease prevention in primary care. Utrecht: Nivel, 2020. 193 p. Proefschrift van de Universiteit Utrecht
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The burden of cardiometabolic diseases (CMD), including cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes type 2 (DM2) and chronic kidney disease, calls for costeffective preventive strategies.
Despite decreasing mortality rates, the prevalence of CMD is still rising due to ageing and an unhealthy lifestyle. Approximately 80% of CMD could be prevented by changing the shared risk factors (hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, smoking, overweight, physical inactivity and an unhealthy diet) by lifestyle and/or drug treatment. Improvement of CMD risk assessment in primary care by early identification of patients at high-risk might be an effective preventive strategy.
The NHG guideline ‘the prevention consultation’ was developed to provide a framework for selective CMD prevention in primary care. This program is directed at all patients aged 45-70 years old without known CMD or CMD risk factors. Patients are invited for self-assessment of CMD risk through a 7-item risk score questionnaire, consisting of questions regarding sex, age, smoking status, BMI, waist circumference and a family history of premature CVD (age <65 years) and DM2 (step1) (see appendix 1). Based on the risk score, people are categorized as having low, intermediate or high risk. In case of high risk, individuals are advidsed to visit their GP for additional risk profiling (step2) - including blood pressure measurement and laboratory tests on fasting glucose and cholesterol levels - and follow-up treatment if indicated (step 3). Several challenges such as the lack of evidence for its cost-effectiveness and structural reimbursement hampered the large scale implementation of this guideline. Therefore the aim of this thesis was to assess the effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of selective CMD prevention in primary care.