Objective: Our aim was to compare the cardiometabolic risk factors prevalence in groups of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and consider the appropriateness of regular risk factors screening. Material and methods: Cross-sectional data of 22 schizophrenia and 22 bipolar patients from previous research were evaluated.
Collected data comprised of the metabolic syndrome components values together with the LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol levels and current tobacco smoking prevalence. SCORE method was used to estimate the ten year fatal cardiovascular event risk.
Results: Patients with schizophrenia showed significantly higher active smoking prevalence (p = 0.042) and were more likely to manifest pathologically elevated LDL cholesterol level (p = 0.012). Abnormally elevated triglycerides were more common in the bipolar group (p = 0.010).
There were nine patients (i.e. 40.90%) in each group reaching high rate of ten year fatal cardiovascular event risk. Conclusion: Despite of relatively small sample size, possibly biasing our data, we found significant differences concerning cardiomatabolic risk factors prevalence between schizophrenia and bipolar group.
It seems reasonable to perform regular cardiometabolic risk factors screening in the same design in both diagnoses.