Association of Primary Care Providers’ Beliefs of Statins for Primary Prevention and Statin Prescription

Background The 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Cholesterol Treatment Guideline increased the number of primary prevention patients eligible for statin therapy, yet uptake of these guidelines has been modest. Little is known of how primary care provider (PCP) beliefs influence statin prescription. Methods and Results We surveyed 164 PCPs from a community‐based North Carolina network in 2017 about statin therapy. We evaluated statin initiation among the PCPs’ statin‐eligible patients between 2014 and 2015 without a previous prescription. Seventy‐two PCPs (43.9%) completed the survey. The median estimate of the relative risk reduction for high‐intensity statins was 45% (interquartile range, 25%–50%). A minority of providers (27.8%) believed statins caused diabetes mellitus, and only 16.7% reported always/very often discussing this with patients. Most PCPs (97.2%) believed that statins cause myopathy, and 72.3% reported always/very often discussing this with patients. Most (77.7...