[Attitude of primary care doctors to follow-up dyslipidemias]

To know the opinion of primary care physicians about the criteria that they use in the request of the laboratories tests of hyperlipidemia and to confirm the above-mentioned opinion with the parameters edited in some guides of clinical practice published on hyperlipidemia.

Transverse and descriptive study. Accomplishment of 2 questionnaires, one by internal post and another one through personal or telephonic interview. Comparison of most important guides of clinical practice.

Primary care of an area of Madrid.

In the survey directed to all the 199 primary care physicians, 116 valid answers were obtained. In the survey directed to all 20 coordinators of the centers of primary care, 16 valid answers were obtained.

The frequency, the percentage and the confidence interval.

109 (94%) of the primary care physicians request laboratories tests in the goal to exclude secondary reasons of hyperlipidemia. The LDL-cholesterol is considered to be a suitable test for the follow-up of the hyperlipidemia by 108 (93.0%) primary care physicians. According to the opinion of the coordinators, the year of edition and/or review of the existing guide in the center changes between 1992-2000.

As strategy of improvement of the clinical practice it is necessary to realize and support an updated guide of clinical practice, where the suitable tests are defined to look for the etiología of hyperlipidemia, the determinations that must be requested for the initial control of the treatment and with which periodicity they are requested.