Patient characteristics and reasons for discontinuation in a cardiovascular risk management programme in The Netherlands

Background: Since 2010, an increasing number of patients have participated in a nurse-led integrated cardiovascular risk management programme in the Netherlands. Because it is important to understand which patients discontinue and why, when evaluating the effectiveness of the care programme, the aim was to identify the reasons for discontinuation. Methods: Electronic health records of 3997 patients enrolled in a nurse-led integrated cardiovascular risk management programme that started on April 1^st, 2010, were manually scrutinized for reasons for discontinuation between April 1^st, 2010, and April 1^st, 2018. In addition to death and moving to a diabetes care programme, we describe 7 different reasons why patients discontinued the programme and compared the patient characteristics of those who discontinued the programme without specific reasons with those who remained in the care programme for 8 years. Results: Between April 1^st, 2010, and April 1^st, 2018, 1,190 participants (29.8%) discontinued the CVRM care programme, of whom 271 participants died (6.8%) and 195 were transferred to a diabetes care programme (4.9%). The remaining 724 patients (18.1%) participated 5 years before discontinuation. Of these, 67 (9.3%) had a previous cardiovascular event at the start of the programme. In 355 patients, a specific reason for discontinuation was not found. At baseline, these patients less frequently had a history of CVD than those who continued the programme for 8 years (1.7 vs. 22.6%), were younger (62 vs. 67 years), had less registered cardiovascular comorbidity (atrial fibrillation: 1.1 vs. 7.2%; congestive heart failure 0.3 vs. 1.2%; chronic kidney disease 0.0 vs. 4.5%), were more often smokers (13.0% vs. 4.3%) and took blood pressure- and lipid-lowering drugs twice as often. Conclusions: In our study we observed that participants who discontinued the nurse-led integrated CVRM care programme between 2010 and 2018 without specific reason or on request were younger, without previous CVD, had less cardiovascular comorbidity and were better adjusted to medication. Exploring the patients’ reasons for discontinuation can contribute to an individualized approach to prevent or reduce discontinuation.