Evaluating quality and its determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of heart disease and stroke in primary care: a study in an inner London Borough.

OBJECTIVES

To assess quality of management and determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) using multilevel regression models.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Inner London borough, with a primary care registered population of 378,000 (2013).

PARTICIPANTS

48/49 participating general practices with 7869 patients on heart disease/stroke registers were included.

OUTCOME MEASURES

(1) Recording of current total cholesterol levels and lipid control according to national evidence-based standards. (2) Assessment of quality by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, presence of other risks or comorbidity in meeting both lipid measurement and control standards.

RESULTS

Some process standards were not met. Patients with a current cholesterol measurement >5 mmol/L were less likely to have a current statin prescription (adjusted OR=3.10; 95% CI 2.70 to 3.56). They were more likely to have clustering of other CVD risk factors. Women were significantly more likely to have raised cholesterol after adjustment for other factors (adjusted OR=1.74; 95% CI 1.53 to 1.98).

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, the key factor that explained poor lipid control in people with CVD was having no current prescription record of a statin. Women were more likely to have poorly controlled cholesterol (independent of comorbid risk factors and after adjusting for age, ethnicity, deprivation index and practice-level variation). Women with CVD should be offered statin prescription and may require higher statin dosage for improved control.