The Effect Of Menopause On Women s Quality Of Life

Introduction:Women are considered family health and are the main pattern of training andpromoting healthy lifestyle to the next generation. This natural cycle is considered as apermanent cessation of menstruation and is as a physiological event of the end of menstrualperiod and fertility in women that occur between 40 and 59 years and affects the quality oftheir lives.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted through cluster sampling among 480 postmenopausal women in Yazd in 2008. Data were collected using the menopause quality of life questionnaire (MENQOL) by interviewing. Content validity and Cronbach’s alpha were used, respectively, to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaires. Inferential and descriptive statistics via SPSS.15 software was used for data analysis.Results: The results showed that the menopausal women have worse QoL scores in vasomotor dimension and higher QoL scores in physical dimension. Univariate analysis showed that there were significant differences in the MENQOL scores by age, number of children, education, postmenopausal stage, employment status, and BMI. Women aged 60–65 (P<0.05), with a university level of education (P<0.01), who had employment (P<0.01), who had postmenopausal stage 5 or more years (P<0.05), with A BMI> _18.5 (P<0.05), and who had significantly lower scores indicating better quality of life.Conclusion:Being younger, having low education, and having higher BMI resulted in poorer menopause-specific QoL on many of the MENQOL domains. Older women had a significantly better HR-QOL compared with younger women. The findings of this study showed that it seems necessary to offer consultations to develop women’s knowledge of menopausal health.

Keywords:

Women-Menopause-Health