8th Cardiovascular Nursing & Nurse Practitioners Meeting

Biography

Biography: Lee-Ing Tsao

Abstract

Perimenopausal women may seek medical consultation due to symptoms such as palpitation, intermittent hot flash, night sweat, and chest tightness, shortness of breath, headache, insomnia, anxiety, and fear. These symptoms often confuse women and lead to disruption of lifestyle. They may worry about whether or not they have heart diseases and seek cardiovascular outpatient treatment. In some cases these women did have heart diseases instead of perimenopausal symptoms, while in other cases these women were diagnosed with vasomotor symptoms of menopause. The purposes of current study was to explore the chief complaints, vasomotor symptoms, risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, perceived susceptibility to heart disease, and current status of health behaviors among perimenopausal women in cardiovascular outpatient clinics. Fifty women with the mean age of 51.58±3.00 were recruited. The top three ranking of the most frequent chief complaints were: palpitation (54%), high blood pressure (42%) and chest discomfort (4%). There is no correlation among disturbance levels of vasomotor symptoms, perceived susceptibility to heart disease, level of psychological disturbance, and perimenopausal health behavior. For perimenopausal women with the following characteristics, attention should be paid to their cardiovascular assessment: “chief complaint during medical consultation”, “using hormone”, “inclination of anxiety or depression”.The suggestion of current study was : to provide individualized and effective method for relieving symptoms of vasomotor discomforts, to provide appropriate emotional outlet, to establish favorable supporting system, to provide associated information regarding hormone therapy and health promotion for preventing coronart heart disease.