HYPERCHOLESTEROLEMIA SCREENING - DOES KNOWLEDGE OF BLOOD CHOLESTEROL LEVEL AFFECT DIETARY-FAT INTAKE

OBJECTIVE To assess whether knowing blood cholesterol test results inf luences people's intention to lower their dietary fat intake and to as sess changes in diet after 3 months. DESIGN Randomized clinical study. SETTING Two hospital-based family medicine centres. PARTICIPANTS A to tal of 526 patients aged 18 to 65, without prior knowledge of their bl ood cholesterol levels, were recruited. Seventy did not appear for the ir appointments, and 37 did not meet study criteria, leaving 419 parti cipants. From that group, 391 completed the study. INTERVENTIONS Patie nts submitted to cholesterol screening were randomly assigned to one o f two groups, completing the study questionnaires either before (contr ol group) or after (experimental group) being informed of their screen ing test results. All participants were called 3 months after transmis sion of test results to assess their dietary fat intake at that time. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Differences in intention to adopt a low-fat diet reported between the experimental and control groups and differences in dietary fat intake modification after 3 months between patients wit h normal and abnormal blood cholesterol test results. RESULTS Knowledg e of test results influenced patients' intentions to adopt low-fat die ts (F-1,F-417=5.4, P=.02). Patients reported lower mean dietary fat in take after 3 months than at baseline (P<.0001). The reduction was grea ter in patients with abnormal screening results (F-2,F-388=3.6, P=.03) . CONCLUSIONS Being informed of personal blood cholesterol levels effe cts an immediate change in eating habits that translates into reduced dietary fat intake.