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A team of Ottawa researchers is helping people calculate their risk of heart disease and change their unhealthy habits by launching an easy-to-use online calculator.
The Cardiovascular Disease Risk Management Tool (CVDPoRT)) allows users to determine their risk of hospitalization or death from cardiovascular disease over the next five years by answering questions about their lifestyle, such as their physical activity, their consumption of alcohol, their diet and they smoke. Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death in Canada.
According to Doug Manuel, principal investigator and principal investigator at the Ottawa Hospital, the calculator is unique because it also takes into account less obvious factors, such as socio-demographic status, environmental influences, levels stress, education, sense of belonging, ethnicity and immigration. Although doctors often check a patient's blood pressure and cholesterol levels, Dr. Manuel stated that they were not always asking about their lifestyle.
"I think that giving this information [to the patient] really begins to allow patients to appreciate whether they stop smoking or improve their diet, how that will reduce their heart disease.
The interactive calculator adjusts the risk of the patient throughout the survey so that users can see
The researchers used the "big data" compiled from routine surveys on Statistics Canada's health care to more than 100,000 Canadians. s from 2001 to 2007, as well as hospitalization and death data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) for their algorithm.
The results of the project were published in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association on Monday.
. Manuel says that the tool will save patients time because it is so easy to complete at home.
"At home, they can fill in information, badess risk, talk to the doctor and start the conversation on how to prevent it. For example, if a patient learns that he has a risk five per cent means that five in every 100 people with similar risk factors will have a serious cardiovascular event in the immune system. the next five years. The calculator will also provide users with an estimate of the age of their heart based on lifestyle factors.
Patients are also more likely to provide more honest information because they can complete the questions in the privacy of their own home by contrast. According to Dr. Kumanan Wilson, a general internist at the University of Michigan. Ottawa Hospital, [traduction] "I think it would probably be less intimidating for patients than their clinician would ask them to do. Wilson said. "I suspect that they can be more honest with themselves than in front of a doctor."
Dr. Manuel says that patients should not be nervous about the results they can receive if they answer honestly.
"I think people are going to be surprised that their risk of heart disease and stroke is not as high as they think, especially for women," she said. he says. "I think people should not be afraid to use the calculator, I think people will get messages to support their healthy lives and keep them motivated."
Project Big Life
The Cardiovascular Disease Population Risk Tool is the latest addition to the Big Life project, an online collection of easy-to-use health calculators developed by researchers at the Ottawa Hospital. [19659002] Calculator algorithms use Canadian health data to predict things such as life expectancy, daily sodium intake, risk of heart attack and stroke, and health care costs
. said that they have already to have about two million people use online tools around the world. He said that the results patients will receive at home will help doctors adapt their treatments and encourage specific lifestyle changes.
"We will spend more time talking about what to do rather than understanding the problem. He said:
With a report from CTV medical affairs expert Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip
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