Objective: Associating the level of awareness concerning cardiovascular risk factors related to changes in clinical, anthropometric and biochemical markers regarding cardiovascular risk in people living in Naguanagua, Venezuela.
Method: 205 patients aged 18 to 77 years were evaluated; weight, height, waist circumference, blood pressure, glucose and serum lipid profile were measured. A survey assessed the patients' level of awareness regarding cardiovascular risk factors.
Results: A high frequency of abdominal obesity (67 %), being overweight and obese (38 %) and suffering from hypertension (26 %) was observed. Nearly 60 % of respondents claimed to know about cardiovascular risk factors, but only 14.7 % of them recognized the eleven factors considered to define such level of knowledge. More than half of the participants showed a low level of awareness concerning cardiovascular risk factors; average levels of total cholesterol, cholesterol LDL and triglycerides were significantly lower in the group having a high level of knowledge concerning cardiovascular risk factors.
Conclusions: Extremely low levels of awareness regarding cardiovascular risk factor prevalence and high frequency concerning changes in clinical, anthropometric and biochemical markers for cardiovascular risk were higher in the group having a high level of knowledge of cardiovascular risk factors, thereby confirming the need for implementing strategies for raising Venezuelan communities' level of knowledge regarding cardiovascular risk factors and also encouraging them to adopt a lifestyle associated with reduced cardiovascular risk factors and self-care.