Please select the eligibility criteria that correspond to the clinical trial below.
Title: The Effectiveness of Personalized Stroke Risk Communication - A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial
Brief Summary: The goal of this research is to improve communication to Veterans. The investigators want to improve how doctors and nurses talk to patients about the risk of heart attack and stroke. The investigators will give everyone in the study information about the risk for heart attack or stroke. The investigators will also provide information on how to reduce this risk. This information will be given in one of two ways. The investigators want to see which way of giving information works better for veterans. The investigators also want to assess the impact of personalized stroke risk communication to patients at risk for stroke on patient knowledge, beliefs, and preferences for risk reduction behaviors and evaluate the impact of personalized risk communication on medication adherence and blood pressure. The investigators plan to enroll approximately 100 veterans for this study. All veterans will be from the Durham VA Primary Care Clinics. The investigators will ask everyone to be in the study for 3 months.


Options:
A: Inclusion Criteria:

* All adults age 30-\<70 men and women who have received care at GH primary care medical centers in Western Washington and who have been continuously enrolled in GH for at least 2 years.
* BMI 26 or higher,
* Uncontrolled HTN (based on the 2 most recent visits), and moderate risk for CVD.

Exclusion Criteria:

* A history of any type of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Including TIA, stroke, coronary heart disease (CHD), angina, congestive heart failure (CHF), peripheral arterial disease (PAD), ar, CHF, PAD), arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy, and valvular disease.
* Pre existing diagnosis of diabetes
* Diagnosis of a serious life threatening or limiting condition
* Pre existing diagnosis of alcohol or chemical dependency
* Pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant in the next 6 months. Women randomized to the intervention group who become pregnant during the study will be given the option of continuing the intervention in conjunction with usual pre-natal care provided by GH, but will not be included in the final analysis for the study. Women randomized to the self care group who become pregnant during the study will be given the home monitoring equipment usually given to the control group at the end of the study. They will then be referred for usual care and will also not be included in the final analysis for the study.
* Unable or unwilling to participate
B: Inclusion Criteria:Practices- within 50 miles of research unit,primary care providers, had at least 20 patients agreeing to have chart audited, agreed to be randomly allocated to the intervention or control.

Patients- age 18-80,expected to survive for at least 2 years,agreed to have limited chart audits - Exclusion Criteria:Practices- specialty practices not primary care, more than 50 miles away, involved in another cholesterol management trial, anticipating closing in the next two years.

Patients- children or adolescents,over the age of 80, dementia,comfort measures only.

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C: Inclusion Criteria:

* Enrolled in a Durham VA Primary Care Clinic for at least one year
* Age ≥ 55 years old
* Diagnosis ICD 401.0, 401.1, or 401.9 on outpatient electronic encounter forms in the prior year
* Received a prescription for hypertensive medication (ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, diuretics, alpha1 blockers, and/or central alpha2 agonists) in the previous year
* Inadequate BP control based on an average of prior 12-month clinic BP measurements
* Have a baseline EKG within the last 5 years to evaluate the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Hospitalized at the DVAMC for a myocardial infarction (MI), coronary artery revascularization, or diagnosis of metastatic cancer in the past 6 months
* Prior history of stroke
* Active diagnosis of psychosis or dementia documented in medical record
* Participating in another chronic disease self-management study
* Resident of a nursing home
* Does not have access to a telephone
* Refusal to provide informed consent
D: Inclusion/exclusion criteria are based on practice characteristics. Practices are considered the study participants. However, because of the individual nature of the intervention tool, individual healthcare providers in the participating practices will be asked to participate voluntarily in the intervention and data collection. We anticipate approximately 320 healthcare providers to be included in these 64 practices. The research study will not directly intervene on patients of participating healthcare providers. However, patient charts will be assessed to evaluate changes in the practice's screening and management behaviors. Patient records will be included in this project in proportion to patient representation in participating primary care practices in NC and in proportion to their rates of cholesterol screening.

Potentially eligible patients for the chart abstraction sample will be adults, ages 21 through 84 years, seen in the participating primary care practices during the baseline (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2003) or follow-up (March 1, 2004 - February 28, 2006) periods. We are examining two-year periods to increase the proportion of patients that has been screened. We can include "year 0" (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2002), because ATPIII was published in May 2001. Although the guidelines do not exclude persons older than 84 years, at present we propose to restrict the evaluation sample to the aforementioned age group, due to acknowledged controversies regarding the appropriate preventive strategies in the very old.

Practice Inclusion Criteria:

Primary Care Practices (Internal Medicine or Family Medicine) Within 3-hour driving radius of WFUSM At least 50% of practice's providers willing to participate in study Willingness to accept randomization assignment Willingness to participate in chart audit Have a computer suitable for connectivity with the PDAs for installation of software upgrades and for printing of patient-specific reports for medical record documentation purposes

Practice Exclusion Criteria:

Academic practices

Provider Inclusion Criteria:

Practicing healthcare provider affiliated with a primary care practice participating in GLAD Heart.

Willingness to participate

Provider Exclusion Criteria:

None

Potentially eligible patients for the chart abstraction sample will be adults, ages 21 through 84 years, seen in the participating primary care practices during the baseline (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2003) or follow-up (March 1, 2004 - February 28, 2006) periods. We are examining two-year periods to increase the proportion of patients that has been screened. We can include "year 0" (July 1, 2001 - June 30, 2002), because ATPIII was published in May 2001. Although the guidelines do not exclude persons older than 84 years, at present we propose to restrict the evaluation sample to the aforementioned age group, due to acknowledged controversies regarding the appropriate preventive strategies in the very old.

Answer: C