Do Physicians' Beliefs About Coronary Risk Factors Account for Poor Screening and Treatment Rates?

Abstract

The authors hypothesized that the widely observed low rates of coronary risk factor screening and treatment among cardiologists could be due to lack of belief in the importance of risk factors. They performed an audit of 160 randomly selected medical records of patients with coronary artery disease and surveyed the attending physicians' ranking of importance of individual risk factors to determine the extent of risk factor screening and treatment done by these physicians. Screening and treatment rates for individual risk factors were highly variable but generally well below expected. There was no correlation among rank orders of screening rates, treatment rates, and physician-rated importance of each risk factor. These results suggest that lack of belief in risk factor importance does not explain failure of physicians to screen for and treat risk factors in coronary patients.