Midlife Women's Symptom Index as a Screening Tool for Risk Symptoms of Cardiac-related Disease

Introduction: Awareness of cardiac-related disease (CD) as a leading cause of mortality among women has been increasing and is of great concern to the public’s health. The purpose of this study is to examine the scores on the Midlife Women’s Symptom Index (MSI) between women with and without CD in order to explore the possibility of using the MSI as a self-screening tool for risk symptoms of CD.

Method: This is a secondary analysis study using a cross-sectional Internet survey of menopausal symptoms. The instrument for data collection was the MSI, which includes 73 menopausal symptoms. The MSI has three subscales which measure physical, psychological, and psychosomatic symptoms. Severity of menopausal symptoms is measured using a Likert scale.

Results: For the purpose of this inquiry, CD was defined as having a diagnosis of hypertension or hyperlipidemia or both. In women with CD (N = 108), 96% reported receiving health advice from health care providers (p=0.002) and 65% reporting being healthy (p=.003). The distribution of women with and without CD varied significantly by race/ethnicity (p=0.004). Women with CD reported significantly higher severity MSI scores on the physical and psychosomatic subscales than those without CD while without and with controlling for significant demographic variables.

Conclusion: The finds support that the MSI could be used as a self-screening tool for risk symptoms of CD in women.

Acknowledgement: This is a secondary analysis of the data from a larger study that was funded by the NIH/NINR (1R01NR010568-01) entitled "Ethnic-Specific Midlife Women's Attitudes Toward Physical Activity.”