International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public Health

Severity of Menopausal symptoms and the quality of life at different status of Menopause: a community based survey from rural Sindh, Pakistan

Background: Menopause is the time in women’s life when her ovaries stops producing Estrogen and Progesterone, the deficiency of these hormones elicit various somatic, psychological, vasomotor and sexual symptoms that affect the overall quality of life of women. Assessment of quality of life during menopause deserves special attention as with increase in the life expectancy women lives about one third of their lives with hormone deficient state. Studies on menopause and quality of life of menopausal women are scarce and none is conducted before among rural women of Sindh Province, Pakistan.

Objective: To investigate the severity of menopausal symptoms associated with menopausal status and to determine the quality of life of menopausal women from rural Sindh.

Material and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in 19 Union Councils of Matiary district, Hyderabad Division from November 2007 to October 2008. Among 5, 25,082 population dwelling in 1509 villages and 56,053 households of these Union Councils, 3062 women were selected by multistage random sampling method within the age range of 40-70 years. Along with collection of socio-demographic data the Menopause rating Scale (MRS) and WHO Quality of life Brief (WHO QOL Brief) Questionnaire translated in Sindhi Language were filled for each individual subject. Data was entered and analyzed by SPSS V 15.

Results: The mean age at Menopause was 49.38±14.29 years; the mean scores of menopause rating Scale were high in all domains, the significant difference was found in the mean somatic scores of women in Premenopause, perimenopause and post menopause status (P=<0.001). The psychological symptoms were more severe for women in perimenopause and post menopause status while the scores for urogenital symptoms were found to be higher in perimenopause women (P=<0.001). The mean scores for the physical, psychological, social and environmental domains of WHO QOL questionnaire were found significantly impaired for all women at different status of menopause.

Conclusion: To best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to provide data on menopause and quality of life of women from rural Sindh. The mean scores of all the domains of Menopause rating scale were significantly high in Peri and postmenopausal women fromrural Sindh. The severity of menopausal symptoms decreases the quality of life in everyday life of these rural women.

Author(s): Nusrat Nisar, Nisar Ahmed Sohoo

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