Cardiovascular prevention is among the main objectives of the National Prevention Plan 2005-2007. The National Centre for Disease and Prevention (CCM) has launched a national training plan aimed at increasing General Practitioners’ (GPs) awareness about the key role of cardiovascular prevention, the importance of cardiovascular risk assessment and of assessing tools.

 

Within the CCM, a task force consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Health, the National Institute of Health and the Italian Drug Agency, and open to representatives from Italian Regions, was established with the aim of setting up the National Training Plan on Cardiovascular Risk as part of the National Prevention Plan 2005-2007.

 

The Department of Cardiovascular, Endocrine-metabolic Diseases and Aging of the National Institute of Health (ISS) is responsible for planning and implementing a training course on the use and implementation of cardiovascular risk chart in clinical practice addressed to GPs and other health professionals.

 

This training course aims to achieve change in the professional practice resulting in:

• the adoption of standardized methodologies for the measurement of risk factors
• the assessment of global absolute cardiovascular risk in the general population ages 35-69
• the use of the risk chart and the cuore.exe software to calculate the individual risk score
• the adoption of shared recommendations and the elaboration of a common language on cardiovascular risk prevention through healthy lifestyles
• the adoption of shared recommendations on drug treatment for individuals at risk
• the implementation and adoption of shared tools for self-assessing the results of the application of risk chart to patients
• the promotion of active participation in working groups for data collection, analysis and assessment of results.

The new skills acquired through the training course will translate into health objectives for the general population and for individuals:

• lifestyle changes among individuals at high risk and general population
• reduction of regional disparities
• reduction in the frequency of risk conditions and in the mean level of single risk factors
• reduction in the incidence of major coronary and cerebrovascular events.

Click here to go to the course description.

 

The implementation of the training course requires the training course requires the involvement of health professionals (GPs and other figures interested) in a top-down training programme. The main aim is to create a network of trainers able to assure GPs training at local level. This network will afterward be useful for maintaining contact with GPs and involving them in future research and assessment activities.