Pinkas J, et al. - The effect of the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and metabolic syndrome (MS) diagnoses was gauged on the frequency of health behaviours, in postmenopausal women working in agriculture. It was inferred that postmenopausal women working in agriculture more often carried out beneficial health behaviours if they had cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and metabolic syndrome (MS) diagnosed in comparison to healthy women.

Methods

• The enrollment consisted of 810 postmenopausal women residing in rural areas and working in agriculture, aged 46-70 and at least 12 months from the last menstrual period.
• The assessment of variance with multiple comparison tests compared the Inventory of Health Behaviours among the women with and without CVDs and MS.

Results

• The frequency of some health behaviours, mainly health practices, was found to be higher in postmenopausal women working in agriculture with CVDs or MS than in those without CVDs or MS (p = 0.045).
• Such women frequently limited their physical effort (p = 0.029), tried to be less overworked (p < 0.001) and took more rest, (p = 0.027) more often limited the intake of animal fat and sugar (p = 0.024).
• They were reported to more regularly visit physicians (p = 0.003) and more often took the suggestions seriously in terms of their health.
• An insufficient frequency of health behaviours was brought to light among both the healthy women and those with metabolic disorders and CVDs.
• One-third of all the examined women reported a high frequency of health behaviours, one-third had an average frequency and one-third had a low frequency.
• Hence, it was recommended that actions ought to be taken to improve the situation.