Understanding and managing cardiovascular risks in treating mental illness

Individuals with significant mental illness are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Atypical antipsychotics are among the most commonly prescribed psychotropic medications and they too can have uncommon but significant cardiac side-effects. It is important for psychiatrists to understand these risks, but many feel inexperienced and ill-equipped to do so, lacking confidence about when to instigate assessments or treatments and when to seek specialist advice.

This module will build on the BJPsych Advances paper 'Understanding and managing cardiac side-effects of second-generation antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia'. We will provide practical, psychiatry-related tips and information on:

• reading an electrocardiogram (ECG),
• how to approach cardiovascular risk assessment,
• common imaging techniques used by cardiologists to evaluate common heart conditions.

We hope to improve psychiatrists' confidence in clarifying when to seek specialist input.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• outline the epidemiology of various cardiac conditions in relation to atypical antipsychotics, and how these vary between medications
• skilfully interpret an ECG and detect common abnormal findings (including long QT syndrome in relation to atypical antipsychotics)
•  list the principles of a cardiovascular disease risk assessment for individuals with schizophrenia and recognise when to refer a patient to a cardiologist
• describe heart failure and myocarditis as conditions arising from atypical antipsychotic use, and the contemporary tools used in cardiology to investigate these conditions.

Availability

This module is available as part of a CPD eLearning subscription.