Women in Saudi Arabia and the Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risk Factors; A systematic review
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Author(s)
Alshaikh, M
Filippidis, F
Rawaf, S
Baldove, J
Majeed, A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of death in Saudi Arabia. Saudi women in particular are more susceptible as there are sociocultural restrictions on female physical activities that may lead to high prevalence of CVD risks, especially obesity, and physical inactivity. This study aims to systematically review the published articles related to the prevalence of CVD risk among women in Saudi Arabia. The search strategy covers all published articles that assess the risk factor of CVD in Saudi Arabia from January 2000 to December 2015, using the following sources: Medline, Embase, and PsycINFO. A total of 61 studies were included. Results. Prevalence among Saudi women of smoking ranged from 1.1% to 9.1%, hypertension was 21.8%, diabetes ranged from 9.6% to 27.6%, overweight was 27%, and obesity was 40.23%, and physical inactivity ranged from 53.2% to 98.1%. Hypercholesterolemia prevalence on Saudi women on average was 24.5%, while metabolic syndrome ranged from 13.6% to 40.3%. Conclusion. The prevalence of CVD risk factors is high among women in Saudi Arabia especially in obesity and physical inactivity. Public health authorities must implement solutions from a gender specific aspect to reverse the trend and decrease the prevalence of CVDs among Saudi women.
Date Issued
2016-08-23
Date Acceptance
2016-08-23
Citation
Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2016, 2016
ISSN
1687-9813
Publisher
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Environmental and Public Health
Volume
2016
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Mashael K. Alshaikh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Subjects
0502 Environmental Science And Management
1117 Public Health And Health Services
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
7479357