Now-a-days, obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) became a matter of concern in Schizophrenia, due to their potential relation with atipical antypsychotics. The high prevalence of CVRF in schizophrenic patients is a consensual issue, but there are only a few studies in Portugal.

This is an observational transversal study thats aims to evaluate the presence of CVRF, and to establish the relationship between these ones and anthropometric measurements evaluating global and regional adiposity, in a population of schizophrenic patients.

The authors studied a population of 25 schizophrenic patients followed at our Department of Psychiatry. These instruments were used: PANSS (Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale), and a semi-structured interview, with sociodemografic data, and information about life style, medication and schizophrenia. These informations were completed according to the clinical process. The following measurements were recorded: weight, height, abdominal circunference, lipidic and glicemic values, and blood pressure.

The high frequency of CVRF in the population of this study confirms the importance of regular medical evaluations, in every patients with Schizophrenia, to allow early diagnosis/monitorization of CVRF. However, our results dont confirm the benefit of anthropometric measurements as screening methods, possibly due to our small sample. Curiously, we found a week correlation bettween CVRF and environment factors (as medication or life style), what can reforce the hold ideia of Schizophrenic susceptibility to CVRF.