Management of cardiovascular disease risk in people with comorbid mental illness: A cross sectional study in Australian general practice

[Extract]
Psychological distress is associated with increased incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and can negatively impact self-management for CVD risk factor control (Hare et al., 2014). For people with mental illness, prevention services, monitoring and treatment for chronic medical conditions, including CVD, may be suboptimal compared with the general population (Firth et al., 2019). Reasons include mental health needs taking priority over physical needs, increased complexity from managing multiple comorbidities, differential rates of access and care utilisation, prescribing medications that may increase CVD risk and a greater influence of social determinants of health (Firth et al., 2019; Kurdyak and Gnam, 2004).