Cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome and health behaviours of postmenopausal women working in agriculture

INTRODUCTION: The objective of the study was to examine the impact of occurrence of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and metabolic syndrome (MS) diagnoses on the frequency of health behaviours in postmenopausal women working in agriculture. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Eight hundred and ten postmenopausal women living in rural areas and working in agriculture, aged 46–70 and at least 12 months from the last menstrual period, were examined. Analysis of variance with multiple comparison tests was used to compare the Inventory of Health Behaviours among the women with and without CVDs and MS. RESULTS: The frequency of some health behaviours, mainly health practices, is higher in postmenopausal women working in agriculture with CVDs or MS than in those without CVDs or MS (p = 0.045). Women with such disorders more often limit their physical effort (p = 0.029), try to be less overworked (p < 0.001) and to take more rest (p = 0.027), more often limit consumption of animal fat and sugar (p = 0.024), more regularly visit physicians (p = 0.003) and more often take seriously recommendations concerning their health. However, an insufficient frequency of health behaviours was observed among both the healthy women and those with metabolic disorders and CVDs. One third of all the examined women had a high frequency of health behaviours, one third had an average frequency and one third had a low frequency; hence actions should be taken to improve the situation. CONCLUSIONS: Postmenopausal women working in agriculture more often perform beneficial health behaviours if they have MS and CVDs diagnosed in comparison to healthy women.