Background: Despite the high incidence of cardiovascular disease in women, there is a paucity of nursing research that addresses women’s needs for cardiac rehabilitation care. Women are less prone to attend cardiac rehabilitation programs than men are, they also have a higher drop out before completion. Few studies have investigated the reasons. Objective: The purpose of the study was to survey women’s reported experience of and need for rehabilitation after AMI, PTCA or CABG. Method: An exploratory study was carried out. A sample of 490 eligible women who had suffered from AMI, PTCA or CABG took part in the study. A 282-item questionnaire at an ordinal scale level was designed. Results: The 490 women attended one or more parts of a cardiac rehabilitation program; in a physical training group n=182 (37%), in a dietary modification group n=48 (10%), in a conversation group n=73 (15%), in a smoking cessation group n=5 (1%) and in a stress modification group n=35 (7%). Smokers were n=54 (11%) and ex-smokers n=153 (31%). Smoking cessation group was considered as the most important part of cardiac rehabilitation program and in decreasing order of importance physical training group, stress modification group, dietary modification group and last the conversation group. Conclusion: Smoking cessation group was considered to be the most important part in cardiac rehabilitation program, however only 1% of the smokers and ex-smokers had attended a smoking cessation group.