Objective: To analyse agreement between patients' and GPs' perceptions of risk factors and overall risk of ischaemic heart disease (IHD).
Design: Cross-sectional study based on paired information from patients and GPs.
Setting: Twenty-six GPs in the County of Ringkøbing, Denmark, participating in a medical audit during 3 weeks in May 1999.
Subjects: 252 patients with IHD and 1239 without IHD.
Main outcome measures: GPs and patients were asked about specific risk factors for IHD and their perception of overall risk. Their agreement was evaluated by Kappa statistics.
Results: Agreement between GPs and patients varied from 70% to 97%. Disagreement was observed most often for patients with IHD and patients listed with elderly GPs ( > 50 years). Generally, patients perceived the overall risk of IHD lower than their doctors, and for most patients with a perception of low risk the GP estimated the risk as high.
Conclusions: Patients and GPs have different perceptions of the risk of [HD. This may be due to different perceptions of the importance of specific risk factors and different reference frames for risk perception. GPs have an important role in communicating the meaning of risk factors and interventions should be considered to improve risk communication in general practice.