Objective: To assess the prevalence of diagnoses of cardiovascular disorders among the elderly in family practice.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: Estonia, population aged 65 years or older (206,915 persons).
Subjects: 811 elderly persons selected randomly from the lists of family practitioners.
Main outcome measures: Prevalence of hypertension, hypotension, coronary heart disease (CHD), myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF) and cardiac arrhythmias; differences between the genders and age groups.
Results: The prevalence of cardiovascular disorders was as follows: hypertension 63.2%, hypotension 11.1%, CHD 56.5%, MI 9.8%, HF 41.4% and arrhythmias 37.5%. Women had a significantly higher prevalence of hypertension and men of MI. The prevalence of CHD and hypotension was significantly higher in the oldest elderly persons.
Conclusion: Among the older population in Estonia, cardiovascular disorders that have broader diagnostic criteria and need expensive methods for verifying (CHD, HF) have a high prevalence and are most likely over-diagnosed. The need for strict and simple diagnostic methods for these disorders in primary care practice continues to be serious.