Screening premorbid metabolic syndrome in community pharmacies: a cross-sectional descriptive study.

Background: Premorbid metabolic syndrome (pre-MetS) is a cluster of cardiometabolic risk factors characterised by central obesity, elevated fasting glucose, atherogenic dyslipidaemia and hypertension without established cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Community pharmacies are in an excellent position to develop screening programmes because of their direct contact with the population.The main aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of pre-MetS in people who visited community pharmacies for measurement of any of its five risk factors to detect the presence of other risk factors.