Effect of Combined Interventions of Diet and Physical Activity on the Perceived and Actual Risk of Coronary Heart Disease among Women in North of Jordan

Abstract

2 Abstract: Women have received little attention in cardiac research in Jordan. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of combined interventions of diet and physical activity on the perceived and actual risk for coronary heart disease among women in the north of Jordan. An experimental pretest/ posttest design was used. The sample consisted of asymptomatic women aged 40 years or older who lived in the north of Jordan. The intervention involved recommendations concerning healthy diet and physical activity to modify the actual risk for coronary heart disease. The Kruskal-Wallis test; X (2, N = 134) = 46.62, p< 0.001, showed that women 2 who applied both diet and physical activity interventions scored lower actual risk for heart disease than women who only applied one type of intervention (either diet or physical activity). The results indicated the need for constant national heart disease education programmes for women emphasizing adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors. Setting and Sample: A true experimental pretest/ posttest Jordanian women were found to underestimate their study was conducted among a convenience sample of risk for coronary heart disease (CHD); and perceived women who visited the out- patients department at a breast cancer as a greater risk to their health than CHD (2). university hospital and at a government (hospitals are Despite that, 28.9% of deaths among women in Jordan located in the Irbid governorate). The inclusion criteria of were attributed to CHD and 23.5% were due to breast the sample were age is equal to or more than 40 years cancer (3). The majority of research on Jordanian women's willing to participate and not known to have CHD. The health has focused exclusively on reproductive health sample size was estimated using power analysis which aspects (4) and screening for breast cancer (5) and so far yielded a sample size of 159 participants. In this study, the no study has been performed which investigates the researcher gathered data from 165 women to avoid the perceived and the actual risk of coronary heart disease attrition risk. and or interventions that could reduce the risk of CHD among women in Jordan. Procedure This study aimed to assess the perceived risk and the Phase One: Pretest Phase: After obtaining the approval actual risk for coronary heart disease among women in the to conduct the study from the Committee on Human north of Jordan. This study also aimed to evaluate the Research- the Jordanian Ministry of Health and the effectiveness of combined interventions of diet and university hospital, the researcher visited the out- patient coronary heart disease among women in north of Jordan.