PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Olla Qadi AU - Nakawala Lufumpa AU - Nicola Adderley AU - Danai Bem AU - Tom Marshall AU - Farina Kokab TI - Patients’ and health professionals’ attitudes and perceptions towards the initiation of preventive drugs for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease: a systematic review of qualitative studies AID - 10.3399/bjgpopen20X101087 DP - 2020 Oct 21 TA - BJGP Open PG - bjgpopen20X101087 4099 - http://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2020/10/20/bjgpopen20X101087.short 4100 - http://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2020/10/20/bjgpopen20X101087.full AB - Background Statins and antihypertensive agents are recommended for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but they are not always prescribed to eligible patients.Design & setting A systematic review of qualitative studies.Aim To explore health professionals’ and patients’ attitudes towards cardiovascular preventive drugs.Method MEDLINE, Embase, PsychINFO, CINAHL, ASSIA, HMIC, Conference Proceedings Citation Index, and Open Grey were searched for studies of qualitative design without restrictions on date or language. Two reviewers performed study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, and thematic synthesis.Results In total, 2585 titles and abstracts were screened, yielding 27 studies, of which five met eligibility criteria on full text assessment. These included 62 patients and 47 health professionals. Five themes emerged about patient attitudes: questioning preventive drugs; perceived benefit and risks, such as improving quality of life; patient preferences; trust in health professional judgement; and family, friends, and media influences. Five themes emerged about health professional attitudes: addressing patient concerns and information; duty as a health professional to prescribe; uncertainty about preventive drug prescribing; recognising consequences of prescribing, such as unnecessary medicalisation; and personalised treatment.Conclusion The attitudes of patients and health professionals regarding drug initiation for primary prevention reflect the complexity of the patient–health professional encounter in primary practice. For prescribing to be more adherent to guidelines, research should further investigate the patient–health professional relationship and the appropriate communication methods required when discussing drug initiation, specifically for primary prevention.