ABSTRACT
The prevalence of cardiovascular disorders among healthcare providers have been increasing in the past few years and research conducted in this aspect have identified various risk factors that affect cardiovascular health: like shift work, high stress, anxiety, work environment, obesity, high basal metabolic index, and others. PRISMA guidelines were followed and data search was conducted on PubMed, PMC, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar wherein the identification and screening led to 31 selected studies on identification of knowledge, perception and attitude of the healthcare providers regarding their cardiovascular disorders. Results reveal that knowledge level even although high in healthcare providers regarding their cardiovascular health, the attitude or perception differs among them. Lack of time, stigma, fear of unknown, access to healthcare, not wishing to burden co-workers are some of the identified factors which are affecting their decision making regarding proper actions to be taken to address their cardiovascular issues.
Subject(s)
Cardiovascular Diseases , Humans , Cardiovascular Diseases/epidemiology , Cardiovascular Diseases/therapy , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Health PersonnelABSTRACT
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that, if untreated or poorly controlled, can cause significant morbidity in terms of loss of physical function and higher mortality due to higher cardiovascular risk. The standard of care for this disease is the use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). However, patients unable to reach low disease activity or remission and patients unable to tolerate conventional DMARDs will be switched to biologic therapy, a subset of which includes anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors. Since tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors (TNFi) inhibit the inflammatory cascade, they also play an essential role in dampening the progression of atherosclerosis and altering the risk of cardiovascular outcomes in RA. In this study, we assessed the risk of cardiovascular diseases, namely, congestive heart failure, nonfatal myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular disease, and coronary artery disease. We carried out the analysis by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and conducted a literature search utilizing the following databases: PubMed, Science Direct, and Cochrane Library. Using the search strategy, we found a total of 19 articles that fit the inclusion and exclusion criteria, in addition to passing the risk of bias assessment. This is composed of three systematic reviews with meta-analyses, three randomized control studies, four narrative reviews, and nine cohort studies. In this systematic review, it was found that treatment with TNFi causes a corresponding reduction in the risk of cardiovascular events. This review encourages further dissection into the inner workings of TNFi in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease among patients with RA.
