Perceived cardiovascular disease risk among multi-ethnic postmenopausal women residing in Korea: a Q-methodological study.
Kyu Ho Lee, Sun Jung Park, Byung Jun Park
PMID 41969043WHAT IT FOUND
Postmenopausal women in Korea fell into four risk-perception groups, from aware but inconsistent to passive, lifestyle-focused, or information-seeking.
All groups disagreed that menopause affects cardiovascular risk. Education should be tailored rather than uniform.
Key findings
01Four perception types were identified among 40 postmenopausal women, accounting for 48.3% of the variance.
02Across all four types, participants disagreed that menopause affects CVD risk and that hormonal changes after menopause can affect CVD risk.
03Type 1 women agreed menopause-related metabolic changes, stress, blood pressure and cholesterol increase CVD risk, but disagreed with taking prescribed medication, avoiding spicy and hot foods, and openly expressing discomfort.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Participants were recruited by convenience and snowball sampling from one large church in Seoul, so the views may not represent other postmenopausal women in Korea. Most participants were Korean (31 of 40), and the sample was limited by nationality and setting. Approximately two-thirds were younger than 55 years, which limits generalizability to older postmenopausal women at higher cardiovascular risk. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how perceptions change over time or whether tailored education improves behavior. Natural and surgical menopause were combined, and the proportions were not documented, so differences between these groups cannot be examined. The forced Q-sort distribution may have restricted how fully participants could express their priorities. The study reports perceptions and agreement with statements, not clinical outcomes, measured medication adherence, or tested effects of an intervention.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The study was supported by a 2024 Research Grant from Kangwon National University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that a tailored education programme will reduce cardiovascular events. This study only described how 40 postmenopausal women sorted statements about risk, and it did not test an intervention or measure health outcomes.