1Doctoral Student, Department of Foods and Nutrition, Faculty of Family and Community Sciences, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
2Associate Professor, Department of Foods and Nutrition, Faculty of Family and Community Sciences, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
*Corresponding Author: E-mail: mitalhjoshi@gmail.com, sirinair@yahoo.com
Online published on 18 December, 2015.
The study was designed to determine the prevalence of menopausal symptoms during menopausal transition in middle age (30–60 years) women in Vadodara (N=1000).
They were interviewed by means of standard Menopause Rating Scale questionnaire (MRS) to report on the menopausal symptoms which were divided into somatic, psychological and urog. A predesigned questionnaire was used to assess their knowledge associated with menopause along with self-reported health profile.
The mean age of the study population was 42 ±5.1; where mean age of premenopausal group was 40.07 ±3.79, peri menopausal group was 41.72 ±4.28 and post-menopausal group was 46.4 ±5.32. The women reported pain in hands or legs as the most prevalent symptom (73.6%), followed by anxiety (67.4%), physical and mental exhaustion (66.8%). Other symptoms like dryness of vagina (48.5%), heart discomfort (45%), mood swings (35.5%) and irritability (32.8%) were reported by nearly half of the population. Severity of symptoms were observed for anxiety (2.7%), heart discomfort (2.3%), sleep disturbances (2.3%), bladder problems (2.1%). The mean total MRS was found to be rising up during transition from premenopause (4.60 ±3.07) to perimenopause (6.53 ±3.93) and showed a decline during transition from perimenopause to postmenopause (5.78 ±3.03). Amongst the three subscales of MRS, the mean of the Psychological domain (2.59 ±1.91) was higher followed by somatic symptoms (2.03 ±1.54) and least by the urogenital symptoms (0.92 ±0.99). A similar trend was observed during all stages of reproductive life, i.e. premenopausal, perimenopausal or postmenopausal (p<0.001) in these subjects. Knowledge of participants regarding the menopause and related health issues was very poor.
The study concluded that, the time span between different menopausal transitions are very short and clashes with the time when a woman is already barring the highest degree of family responsibilities in her life. Therefore this raises a call for measuring and improving health-related quality of life of women during transition stages.
Menopause, Menopause Rating Scale, Perimenopause, Postmenopause
