Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors of Cardiovascular Diseases: Current Status and Future Directions for Pakistan

Abstract

Decline in cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has been witnessed recently for developed countries. The foremost reason for this can be attributed to the extensive research efforts undertaken by these countries, to find out the risk factors associated with etiology of CVD. According to an estimate from year 1990 to year 2020, cardiovascular premature morbidity and mortality is most likely to double from 85 million disability adjusted life years (DALY) to 140 to160 million DALY worldwide; 80% of this disease burden is expected to take place in developing countries like Pakistan. In Pakistan CVD is on the increase and people get affected ten years earlier as compared with the international norms documented by the western countries. Even in the presence of these alarming statistics, limited research efforts have been undertaken in Pakistan in this regard. Researchers from Pakistan have mostly attended to the traditional and to some extend to the behavioral risk factors of CVD, by and large ignoring the role of psychosocial risk factors. Although it is recorded that in some cases psychosocial risk factors conquer greater if not equal to burden of CVD. This review summarizes researches conducted on Pakistani and South Asian populations to infer the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, along with current status of CVD research in Pakistan. Moreover the review provides directions for future research to be undertaken in Pakistan.