A study on cardiovascular risk factors among care-providers of an apex hospital of Kolkata

Cardiovascular diseases, mostly a lifestyle related disease is going to be an epidemic in near future. Eighty per cent deaths due to cardiovascular diseases occur in low and middle-income group of people. A cross-sectional observational study was undertaken among 208 care-providers of different departments of the Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Kolkata to assess the prevalence of general, physical activity related and dietary risk factors. The study subjects were classified into medical (doctors), auxiliary (nurses, technical staffs) and supportive (peons, sweepers) categories according to their job responsibilities. With the help of risk factor scoring system developed by the investigators the prevalence of different category of risk factors were compared among different categories of care-providers in association with some related biological characteristics. The general risk factors found significantly increased (p < 0.001) with increase in age. The physical activity related risk scores were more in females than males. But the difference was not statistically significant. The supportive staffs had significantly higher general risk factors than doctors and auxiliary staffs. Regarding physical activity related risk factors it was significantly lower in supportive staffs than the other two categories. The picture was different in case of dietary risk factors that were found to be significantly lowest among auxiliary staffs.