School of Nursing, University of Western Sydney-Campbelltown Campus, Penrith South DC, New South Wales 1797, Australia.
Aust Crit Care. 2007 May;20(2):53-9. doi: 10.1016/j.aucc.2007.02.001. Epub 2007 May 7.
Despite the quantity of information available to women about risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), many women do not perceive this risk.
This paper seeks to identify factors in the published literature that influence women's risk perception of heart disease, and how these perceptions influence health outcomes.
A literature search from 1985 to 2006 using the CINAHL, Medline, Embase and PsycINFO electronic databases was undertaken. The keywords used were 'perceived risk', 'cardiac risk factors', 'cardiovascular disease', 'risk misconception', and 'heart disease', combined with 'women' and/or 'gender'. Additional data was obtained by manual searches of bibliographies of articles identified in the electronic searches, and Internet searches.
Until the late 1980s, CVD was perceived as a disease which primarily affected men, as few large clinical trials recruited women. This resulted in a lack of data documenting the relationship between known risk factors and gender. Until recently, health professionals have not focused on disseminating gender-specific information about CVD risks to women, causing women to underestimate their risk of developing CVD even when risk factors are clearly evident. Furthermore, women are less likely than men to recognise the signs and symptoms of CVD, delay in seeking treatment, and fail to adopt healthy lifestyles, all of which increase the incidence of mortality and morbidity in a disease that is largely preventable.
This review highlights the need for health professionals to 'bridge the gap' between perceived and actual risk of CVD in women, and to develop educational programs that specifically target women.
尽管有大量的信息可供女性了解心血管疾病（CVD）的危险因素，但许多女性并未意识到这种风险。
本文旨在确定已发表文献中影响女性对心脏病风险认知的因素，以及这些认知如何影响健康结果。
使用 CINAHL、Medline、Embase 和 PsycINFO 电子数据库进行了 1985 年至 2006 年的文献检索。使用的关键词是“感知风险”、“心脏危险因素”、“心血管疾病”、“风险误解”和“心脏病”，并结合了“女性”和/或“性别”。通过对电子检索中确定的文章的参考文献进行手动搜索以及互联网搜索，获得了额外的数据。
直到 20 世纪 80 年代后期，CVD 才被认为是一种主要影响男性的疾病，因为很少有大型临床试验招募女性。这导致缺乏记录已知危险因素与性别之间关系的数据。直到最近，医疗保健专业人员才没有专注于向女性传播有关 CVD 风险的特定于性别的信息，导致女性即使在明显存在危险因素的情况下也低估了自己患 CVD 的风险。此外，女性比男性更不容易识别 CVD 的症状和体征，更有可能延迟治疗，并未能采用健康的生活方式，所有这些都会增加这种在很大程度上可预防的疾病的死亡率和发病率。
这篇综述强调了医疗保健专业人员需要“缩小”女性 CVD 感知风险与实际风险之间的差距，并制定专门针对女性的教育计划。
