Harris Interactive also conducted a companion survey online from October 21 through November 8, 2004, among 533 healthcare professionals, of whom 212 were primary care physicians, 210 were cardiologists, and 111 were nurses. The primary care physician and cardiologist data were weighted to be representative of their respective populations in the U.S. The nurse data are unweighted and are therefore only representative of the population of nurses surveyed. The nursing database was provided by the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association (PCNA), and consisted of PCNA members. The sampling error for the physician results is +/-7 percentage points and for the nurse results it is +/- 10 percentage points. This online sample is not a probability sample.

A Note on the Results

Survey research, regardless of how it is conducted or whom it surveys, must often be interpreted with caution when analyzing the results. The following caveats apply to this survey. First, many of the questions asked of both the consumer and healthcare professional samples were framed in such a way as to measure whether a certain activity has "ever" been done or discussed. Follow-up questions were not included to quantify the frequency with which these actions are taken. Secondly, the risk calculation used to identify consumers who are at increased risk for heart disease is based solely on information gathered as part of this survey and does not include information from any other sources such as patient medical records. Third, in some cases, questions were worded such that "heart attack" and "stroke" were combined into one item rather than being asked about separately (e.g., a response choice for one question was worded as "preventing heart attack or stro
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Contact: Jennifer Bretsch
jkb@acpm.org
202-466-2044
American College of Preventive Medicine
25-Jan-2005