Women and Heart Disease: Knowledge, Worry, and Motivation

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Abstract

Heart diseases claim many womens lives though many women are not aware of cardiovascular risk factors. Survey was conducted on 534 women to determine the psychosocial factors that bar women realizing cardiovascular risk factors. The study revealed that few women are worried about developing heart diseases though a majority of middle aged women are motivated to modify their cardiovascular risk factor.

Problem Statement

Heart diseases are commonly associated with men. Various institutions dealing with the heart and heart related issues have tried to disseminate information to the public that heart diseases kill more women than people think. Despite the fact that heart diseases kill many women, many women are ignorant of the fact that coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading killer disease of women (Galbraith, 2011).

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to examine both the psychological and social factors that act as barriers hindering women from recognizing the dangers and risk factors associated with cardiovascular hence take precaution to prevent the diseases (Galbraith, 2011).

Literature Review

Majority of the people in the U.S believe that heart diseases attack men only. Associations such as American College of Cardiology and the America Heart Association designed campaigns to educate the public that heart disease is at the fore front of claiming many womens lives. Previous studies reveal that such efforts have been futile though not entirely. According to Mosca et al as cited in Galbraith, (2011)

Minor improvements on womens awareness level of heart diseases have been observed since 1997.

Research Questions

Total number of women who participated in the interview was 534. There were five categories of psychosocial questions which made up a total of 60 questions. The five categories included: worry, personal cardiovascular awareness, general cardiac knowledge, motivation and general cholesterol knowledge (Galbraith, 2011).

Data Collection and Procedures

Commercially designed questions were used to obtain data from the respondents and this was done trough telephone interviews. Research sample was obtained using Random-dialing digit which gave an equal chance to all the telephone households in the U.S. computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing was used to ensure accurate population representation of women aged 18years and above (Galbraith, 2011).

Data Analysis

Descriptive statistics method were applied in establishing baseline demographic variables which included; education, ethnicity, geographic location, age and income. Twenty five univariate models were utilized to determine the significance of the relations between the psychosocial and demographic variables. Cronbach alpha was used to evaluate the scores. Multivariate level was also used in which both the demographic variables and the psychosocial scores were used as predictors in designing predictive models for the psychosocial scores (Galbraith, 2011).

Findings

The analysis showed that on average, women had the motivation to reduce cardiovascular risk factors and especially those aged 45 and above. On personal cardiovascular knowledge, family history was a key factor and many women who had a family history of heart diseases had taken the initiative to know about their cardiovascular risk factor status and most of them had checked their cholesterol levels. Analysis showed that very few women (8%) wee worried of the fact that they could develop heart diseases (Galbraith, 2011).

Limitations

Majority of the selected sample was from less educated women with low income levels thus locked out the average class. Analysis method were insufficient the sample was drawn from those households that had telephones only (Galbraith, 2011).

Conclusions

Women aged 45 and above have the motivation to modify their cardiovascular risk factor. Heart health campaigns directed to less motivated women would play a major role in increasing heart disease awareness.

Social Change Implications

Women would live longer and amount of money spent on hospital bills treating women with heart diseases would reduce (Williams, 2009).

Reference List

Galbraith, E., Mehta, P., Veledar, E., Vaccarino, V & Wenger, N. (2011). PubMed: Women and Heart Disease: Knowledge, Worry, and Motivation. NY, Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Web.

Williams, R. (2009). Self-help Articles: Social Factors Impact Risk for Heart Attack and Disease. Web.

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