Primary outcome
The primary outcome was the proportion of patients reaching the
therapeutic objectives decided by the physician at inclusion: HbA1c for
type 2 diabetes, LDL-c blood levels for hypercholesterolemia and
systolic BP for hypertension. The objectives were set individually for
each patient by the physician himself in accordance to French or
international recommendations for hypertension[49], type 2
diabetes[51] and hypercholesterolemia[52]. If the patient had
more than one pathology, the primary outcome was based upon the
pathology specified as the most relevant in terms of cardiovascular
prevention by the physician before inclusion.
We proceeded to a per protocol analysis on the primary outcomes,
in which we excluded all the drop out patients from the analysis. This
study was not a drug trial, and we then presumed that loss of follow-up
was not due to the study per se nor to the intervention but to
external reasons. Then, the drop out patients should not necessarily be
considered as they did not reach the therapeutic objectives. A per
protocol analysis seemed acceptable to conclude on our results.