Factors associated with menopausal symptoms and their relationship with the quality of life among Turkish women
Introduction
Menopause is regarded as a natural phenomenon that does not require medical treatment. However, it triggers obesity and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and menopausal symptoms may affect the quality of life [1], [2], [3]. WHO [4] considers menopausal symptoms as a problem of female reproduction.
Menopause is defined as complete cessation of menstruation and lack of menstruation for 1 year [5], [6]. Menopausal age has been reported to vary from country to country. In fact, the median age of menopause was 51 years in the United States of America [5], 49.6 years in Iran [7], and 45.6–47.0 years in Turkey [8], [9], [10].
Although women experience similar hormonal changes due to menopause, their menopausal experiences are affected by their age at menopause, education, employment, individual and cultural differences, health status, types of menopause (natural and surgical) sources of stress, roles, environmental conditions, their relationships and desire for giving birth. Furthermore, they may have a number of problems such as “empty-nest syndrome” when children leave home, divorce, loss of spouse, serious health problems, functional losses, ill family members, death of a family member and poverty [5], [7], [11], [12].
Each woman has a different perception of menopause. For some women, it means getting rid of dysmenorrhea and contraceptive methods, while others may think that menopause is loss of the ability to give birth. Some others think that it is the first step towards old age and associate it with loss of energy and physical abilities [5], [7]. However, in traditional communities including Turkey, women get a higher status and become more powerful as they become old [6].
Menopausal symptoms are associated with psychological status and vasomotor, urogenital, cardiovascular and musculo-skeletal systems depending on age. Among menopausal symptoms are hot flashes, night sweats, fast heartbeat, headache, forgetfulness, sleeplessness, anxiety, mood swings, vaginal dryness, dyspareunia, lower urinary tract problems, incontinence, increased risk of infarcts, osteoporosis and joint and back pain [2], [6], [13], [14], [15], [16].
It is of importance that socio-cultural characteristics should be taken into account in planning and offering individual care. Menopausal symptoms, duration and intensity of these symptoms and their relationship with the quality of life vary with socio-cultural characteristics [4], [17], [18], [19]. A study from Turkey revealed that the most frequent menopausal symptom was muscle, joint and bone pain followed by hot flashes, irritability, decreased concentration, memory loss, sleeplessness, decreased libido, anxiety, vaginal dryness, headache, stress incontinence, depression, dyspareunia, fast heartbeat, tenderness in the breast and itching in the vulva [20]. Studies from other countries also report similar symptoms though they have different frequencies [2], [17], [21], [22]. However, there is little information about factors associated with menopausal symptoms and their relationship with the quality of life among Turkish women. Therefore, we attempted to investigate factors associated with menopausal symptoms and their relationship with the quality of life in Turkish women.
Section snippets
Participants
This is a cross-sectional study and included 886 women residing in Aydın, a city in the north of Turkey. Data were collected between 1 September 2005 and 1 May 2006. Out of 20,404 women, 950 were randomly selected and invited to participate in the study, but six women declined to participate and 10 women did not complete the data collection tools properly. Besides, data about 48 women on hormone replacement therapy, likely to affect menopausal symptoms, were not subjected to statistical
Participants
The mean age of the women was 48.62 years (S.D. = 5.75, range: 40–60). Of all participants, 63.4% were primary school graduates, 77.1% were housewives, 91.4% (n = 810) had health insurance and 26.0% (n = 230) were overweight and 39.7% (n = 352) were obese based on body mass index (BMI) calculations.
Of all women, 32.1% (n = 284) were premenopausal, 23.9% (n = 212) were perimenopausal and 44.0% (n = 390) postmenopausal. Details about the women in the sample are given Table 1.
Menopausal symptom scores
Variance analyses showed a
Discussion
We found out that a lot of “so-called” disease-related conditions were associated with menopause and that menopausal symptoms had a negative effect on the quality of life among Turkish women. In fact, being stressed-out during the times of serious diseases, death and job search of family members and moving the house were associated with menopausal symptoms, which is consistent with the literature [12], [15]. Tokuç et al. [33] reported life stresses affected the quality of life in menopausal
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the women who participated in the study. The financial support for this study was provided by the investigators themselves.
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