Coronary heart disease risk in patients with schizophrenia: a Lebanese cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of premature death in patients with schizophrenia. CHD risk in Lebanese patients with schizophrenia remains unknown. Objectives: To (i) evaluate CHD risk of patients with schizophrenia in Lebanon; and (ii) detect the modifiable and non-modifiable factors affecting this risk. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 329 patients with schizophrenia aged 18–75 years. Ten-year hard CHD risk was calculated using the Framingham Risk Score. A logistic regression was conducted taking the dichotomous hard CHD (<10% and ≥10%) as the dependent variable. Results: Ten-year hard CHD risk was low (<10%) in 60.8% of patients, intermediate (10–20%) in 31.6%, and high (>20%) in 7.6%. Multivariate analysis showed that the mean 10-year hard CHD risk was 8.76±6.92 (10.82±6.83 in men and 3.18±2.90 in women). Ten-year hard CHD risk was higher in patients with the metabolic syndrome (odds ratio [OR] 2.67, confidence interval [CI] 1.54–4.64), a longer duration of schizophrenia (OR 1.03, CI 1.01–1.05), history of other medical illnesses (OR 2.02, CI 1.18–3.47), or participating in art therapy (OR 2.13, CI 1.25–3.64) or therapeutic education (OR 1.93, CI 0.93–4.01). Ten-year hard CHD risk was lower in patients receiving risperidone (OR 0.23, CI 0.08–0.68) or any anti-epileptic (OR 0.41, CI 0.24–0.73), or benzodiazepine (OR 0.33, CI 0.17–0.66) medication. Conclusion: CHD is prevalent in patients with schizophrenia in Lebanon. Physicians are recommended to monitor the components of the metabolic syndrome to identify patients with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. *Equal contributionJournal of Comorbidity 2017;7(1):79–8