Cardiovascular risk factors in patients with rheumatic diseases

Introduction: Rheumatic diseases are a group of around 250 diseases that are characterized by fundamentally affecting the osteomyoarticular system. Most of them are considered as systemic diseases because they can affect any organ or organ system of the human body. Cardiovascular damage is one of the most frequent complications among rheumatic diseases patients. Objective: To describe risk factor's behavior of cardiovascular affectation in patients with rheumatic diseases. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in 87 patients diagnosed with different rheumatic diseases. For the positive diagnosis, the criteria of the American College of Rheumatology were taken into account. A questionnaire created specifically for the research was applied, complementary tests were carried out, anthropometric measures were determined and the clinical history was reviewed to determine the cardiovascular risk factors. The Pearson correlation index was used to determine correlation among the study variables. Results: The average age of studied patients was 57.82 years old, with predominance of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (63.22%) and time evolution between 1 and 5 years (59.77%). Only 25.29% had normal weight and 28.74% presented cardiovascular damage. Conclusions: Rheumatic diseases are by themselves a risk factor for cardiovascular damage; the time of evolution of the disease and the alterations of the nutritional status are the elements that have the highest incidence on the presence of cardiovascular affectation.