[Therapeutic education in primary cardiovascular prevention. Interests and limits]

Lifestyle improvement is useful in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, but its practical implementation in the general population is limited. Patient therapeutic education can help go beyond these limits.

In primary prevention, we propose a personalized program including one or several individual and collective sessions to help the participants towards a healthier lifestyle. This includes better education about six risk factors (tobacco, sedentary lifestyle, overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes) as well as advice on better eating habits. The first recommendation is to limit processed meats, the other recommendations advise more fish, green vegetables, whole grains and beans, and fruits. Scores are attributed to six risk factors and five eating habits. These scores are given at the time of the first session and again a year later, thus permitting time comparisons.

For the first 291 participants in the program, we observed at one year a significant improvement in physical activities of endurance and in the consumption of the recommended food groups (fish, green vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans).

The patient's lifestyle has improved as a whole, certain parameters more than others. Assessed patient therapeutic education should be offered to a larger number of people.