Aim. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of women about cardiovascular diseases risk factors. Background. Prevalence of cardiovascular diseases risk factors is increasing rapidly worldwide with development of modernity and urbanization. Method: This cross-sectional study was performed on women with age range of 14-66 years old. The sample size was 735 women. Convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants. Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed by content analysis and test-retest methods. The data were analyzed by using SPSS software with appropriate statistical tests. Findings: The mean age of participants was 23.4± 5 years. The average body mass index of them was 21.7±3 kg/m. 50.1% of them had little information about cardiovascular diseases. The most common of data gathering sources were radio and TV (65.3%). The most common of cardiovascular diseases risk factors included smoking (93.2%), psychological stress (92.8%), obesity (91.2%), high blood triglyceride (89.4%), and fatty rich food consumption (88.7%). 75.2% of participants achieved at least 50% of the mean knowledge score. There were significant statistical correlation between knowledge score and increasing of age and educational level and applying visual media such as TV (p=0.012, p=0.039, p=0.003 respectively). There was no significant correlation between knowledge score and both marital and economic status. Conclusion: It’s suggested to design educational programs according to age, gender, educational level and culture of different groups of society in order to promote knowledge and control cardiovascular diseases risk factors. |