Many women are unaware that coronary heart disease is one of the leading causes of mortality. Instead, breast cancer is their greatest dread. Worryingly, healthcare practitioners seem to lack fundamental understanding regarding cardiovascular disease among women. Women are normally 10 years older than males when heart disease is found, and they are 20 years older when they suffer their first myocardial infarction. Because coronary heart disease is more frequent in elderly women, many believe that postponing the process of decreasing their risk will be postponed. The aim of this study is to assess knowledge of risk factors associated with heart diseases among women of reproductive age in Nigeria. The study was cross sectional study design. Data were collected using self-administered structured questionnaire, and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25 and presented using appropriate tables. Level of significance set at P<0.05. The findings from this study shows a significant association with overall knowledge of the respondents on health related issues at (χ2=23.173, p=0.000) and (χ2=18.260, p=0.000) respectively as p<0.05 in each case and non-significant association with age and religion, economic status and occupation at (χ2=1.158, p=0.561) , (χ2=2.689, p=0.101) (χ2=1.417, p=0.841) and (χ2=7.276, p=0.064) respectively of the respondents as p<0.05. Overall, the respondents participated in this study have a good knowledge and awareness of the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease and warning features of CVD events. Community education on CVDs, targeting especially populations with low socio-economic status, may be beneficial in the combined efforts to achieve the reductions in heart attacks.
Keywords: Risk Factors, awareness, heart disease
