Less Than One-Quarter of Patients Hospitalized for CVD Receive Dietary Counseling

TUESDAY, June 18, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Dietary counseling is infrequently documented after hospitalization for cardiovascular disease (CVD) episodes, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Eric J. Brandt, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues used data from the Michigan Value Collaborative Multipayer Claims Registry (October 2015 to February 2020) to measure the frequency of dietary counseling documentation for patients within 90 days of hospitalization for CVD (coronary artery bypass grafting, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and percutaneous coronary intervention).

The researchers found that among 175,631 episodes of care (146,185 individuals), dietary counseling was documented for 22.8 percent of episodes and was more common during cardiac rehabilitation (18.6 percent) than other encounter types (5.1 percent). Lower odds of dietary counseling documentation were seen among individuals aged 65 years and older (odds ratio [OR], 0.77), women (OR, 0.83), and those with chronic kidney disease (OR, 0.74) or diabetes (OR, 0.95). Greater odds of documented dietary counseling were seen for individuals with obesity (OR, 1.28) and in nonmetropolitan hospitals (OR, 1.31). Acute myocardial infarction (OR, 0.29), congestive heart failure (OR, 0.12), and percutaneous coronary intervention (OR, 0.36) episodes were associated with lower odds of dietary counseling compared with coronary artery bypass grafting.

“Given the large potential influence of lifestyle changes, there should be continued work toward increasing the frequency that patients at high risk for cardiac events receive disease-specific dietary counseling,” the authors write.

One author disclosed financial ties to New Amsterdam Pharmaceuticals.

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