The results of two studies about knowledge
and awareness of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases
(CVD) of 1382 Croatian primary care physicians, internists and
cardiologists as well as 882 citizens have been presented. The
results show that although a great majority of physicians think
that the guidelines for the prevention of CVD are useful, only
more than a half of them use them in their daily work. Although more than four-fifths of physicians think that they provide good treatment to their patients suffering from dyslipidemia, only a half of them know what are the LDL target values
in the patients with a high risk for CVD and which HDL concentration is risky for CVD. Although the population die because of CVD twice as much than of malignant disease, the respondents in the group of general population are much more
afraid of malign diseases, although many of them know that
CVD are the main cause of death. Only more than one fifth of
patients have received advice from their physician in connection with lipid disorders as the CVD risk factor, while more
than a half of respondents have received no instructions about
the risk factors. We may conclude that physicians should
know more about risk factors and guidelines for prevention of
CVD and that the awareness of and knowledge about these
factors in Croatian population should also be improved. The
transfer of information about CVD risk factors between physicians and patients should be improved as well
