[Cardiovascular risk among Spanish seafarers]

Working at sea makes it difficult to receive proper medical attention. Moreover, the prognosis of an acute cardiovascular event often depends on the measures taken in the first few hours after the onset of symptoms, but are often delayed in seamen. Thus, it is very important to detect cardiovascular risk factors in these workers as early as possible. The aim of this study was to measure the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among sailors.

Data were on a sample of 334 individuals in the Madrid Maritime Health Service in 2011. We examined the distribution of cardiovascular risk factors, by age and sex, together withthe presence of various risk factors in the same subject and we calculated the global SCORE risk of each individual.

Most cardiovascular risk factors were highly prevalent, more frequent among men and individuals older than 45 years, especially risk blood pressure values (40,1%), hypercholesterolemia (49,7%), tobacco use (33,5%), overweight (44,6%) and obesity (17,4%).

Since the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among this group of seafarers was high, we consider that pre-voyage medical exams must be very detailed in order to detect cardiovascular risk factors in this population.