Self-awareness Regarding Obesity and Specific Therapy in Patients with Overweight or Obesity and Cardiovascular Diseases from Moscow Region

Abstract

Despite the proven effectiveness of lifestyle interventions and specific medications in the treatment of obesity, little is known about their use in real-world practice. Aim – to study the awareness of patients about the problem of overweight/obesity, as well as the clinical practice of non-drug and drug therapy according to the survey. Eligible patients were recruited from the prospective outpatient registry of patients with cardiovascular diseases. The design of the study was a cross-sectional cohort singlecentre. All of the included patients completed a specifically designed questionnaire. The study included 295 patients (mean age 66.8 ± 11.8 years) with a body mass index (BMI) of ≥25 kg/m2. One hundred eight (36.6%) individuals were overweight, 124 (42.2%) had first-class obesity, 42 (14.2%) had second-class obesity, and 21 (7.1%) patients had third-class obesity. 252 patients (85.4%) were informed of being overweight/obese, and all of them received non-drug recommendations for the treatment of obesity. Anti-obesity medications (AOM) were recommended only to 25 (8.5%) patients: 3 – overweight, 11 – obesity class I, 6 obesity class II, and 5 – obesity class III. Twenty-one (7.1%) patients took the prescribed medications (84% adherence). The drugs were more often taken by patients with class II and III disease (40.5% and 57.1% of patients, respectively). Overweight (8.5%) and class I obesity (18.0%) patients took these drugs less often (p<0.0001). The results of the survey have demonstrated good awareness of patients about their obesity/overweight and quite frequent use of non-drug obesity therapy. However, the rate of AOM prescription was extremely low.