The prevalence of the major conventional cardiovascular risk factors (cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and dyslipidemia) among coronary heart disease (CHD) patients in Tunisia has not been studies extensively. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of cardiovascular risk factors and their association in patients hospitalised for coronary heart disease at Rabta, charles Nicolle, Habib Thameur, Military Hospitals (Tunis), Fattouma Bourguiba hospital (Monastir), Farhat Hached, and Sahloul hospitals (Sousse); Mohamed Tahar Maamouri Hospital (Nabeul); Menzel Bourguiba Hospital and Ibn El Jazzar Hospital (Kairouan) over the period 1994-1998 and during 2004.

The clinical features of 44154 patients (25635 men (58.1%) and 18519 women (41.1%) on hospital admission were analyzed.

40.8% of the patients were hospitalized for coronary deficiency, 16.5% for valvular cardiopathy, 4.8% for cardiomiopthy, 16.9% for arrhythmia and conduction disturbance, 3.6% for essential hypertension, 2.5% for stroke and 14.9% for various pathologies.

The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, smoking, obesity and dyslipidemia was 29.9%, 30.3%, 66.9%, 11.9%, and 30.2% respectively in the men and 43.5%, 30.2%, 3.5%, 14.6%, and 27.1% respectively in women.

With this risk factor profile Tunisia has to implement a national strategy of primary prevention and heart health promotion in addition to the efforts recently made in secondary prevention of some chronic disease such as hypertension, diabetes, and smoking.