Cardiovascular risk communication might be failing patients when they need it most, after the HARIPA study revealed significant disconnects between patient and physician perceptions of future cardiovascular risk and procedural complications.
- Effective risk communication is essential for cardiovascular disease management as the leading cause of global mortality, supporting decision-making and treatment adherence.
- Gaps between what physicians say and what patients hear can weaken therapy compliance and health outcomes making communication a quality-of-care issue.
The HARIPA study surveyed cardiology inpatients and their physicians from October 2022 to March 2023, using structured questionnaires to assess risk perception and communication quality, revealing some serious misalignments…
- Agreement between patients and physicians regarding future cardiovascular risk was poor (0.29 agreement level), with patients often underestimating true risk levels.
- Patient understanding of procedural risks showed only moderate agreement (0.34).
- Despite communication failures, 76.9% of patients reported feeling adequately informed about procedural risks, suggesting overconfidence in risk understanding.
- Among the 208 patients who experienced complications, 69.3% stated they had not been warned about the complications they developed.
Researchers also revealed that a patient’s perceived level of understanding doesn’t translate to actual risk comprehension or preparedness for potential outcomes.
- The most common admission diagnosis was ischemic heart disease (41.3%), representing patients at particularly high risk for future cardiovascular events.
- The study’s multicenter design across 28 hospitals also suggests these communication gaps are systemic rather than isolated institutional problems.
Given that well-informed patients demonstrate better adherence to preventive therapies, addressing these communication failures represents both a patient safety problem and an opportunity to improve long-term cardiovascular outcomes.
- For example, physicians can tailor communication strategies to individual patient characteristics with the goal of improving both understanding and health outcomes.
- However, it’s worth noting that patients often underestimate the likelihood of their own mortality, which effective communication may never change.
The Takeaway
The HARIPA study exposes a paradox in cardiovascular care because while patients feel adequately informed about their risks, they consistently underestimate future cardiovascular danger and remain unprepared for complications. Where it gets trickier is also understanding that even perfect physician communication might not change a patient’s bad habits or put them in touch with reality.
