Introduction
Atherosclerotic Disease, atherosclerosis, cognitive and emotional reactions
CVD, ATHEROSCLEROSIS, CHRONIC DISEASES
The world is facing major challenges regarding health prevention of life style related chronic diseases and substantial medical costs. Non-adherence to preventive guidelines is of great concern [The Visualisation of Asymptomatic Atherosclerotic Disease for Optimum Cardiovascular Prevention (VIPVIZA) trial assesses the impact of visualisation of asymptomatic atherosclerosis, added to traditional statistical risk factor-based risk communication. Since the VIPVIZA study provides evidence of the contributory role of pictorial presentation of atherosclerosis for reduction of CVD risk factors [To the best of our knowledge, there is no qualitative study that has explored cognitive and emotional reactions to personalised and pictorial-based CVD risk communication, focusing both on present and previous experiences.Applying a qualitative approach, our study assessed VIPVIZA participants in the intervention group who at baseline and three-year follow-up had received a pictorial ultrasound-based risk message about presence of atherosclerosis. The aim was to explore cognitive and emotional reactions evoked by the intervention as well as attitudes to any implemented life style change in VIPVIZA participants in the intervention group with improved health status, and furthermore to study possible interactions between these factors. More specifically, the research questions regarded how the informants described their (a) cognitive and emotional reactions to the pictorial-based intervention, (b) perspectives, such as response efficacy, regarding any implemented lifestyle change and (c) cognitive and emotional reactions in the process of changing or maintaining health behaviour.