Menopausal symptoms in Australian women

Abstract

ObJectives: To describe Australian-born women's experience of symptoms during the natural menopause transition and the relative contribution of menopausal and health status, social factors and lifestyle behaviours.Design: A community based crosssectional survey by telephone Interview was carried out on a randomly derived sample of Melbourne women.Participants: The participants were 2000 Australian-born women, aged between 45 and 55 years. Outcome measures:A list of 22 symptoms was used. Explanatory variables were: soclodemographlc variables; menopausal and health status; lifestyle behaviours; attitudes to ageing and to menopause.Results: A 70% response rate was achieved for eligible women who could be contacted during the study. Premenopausal women were the least symptomatic and perlmenopausal women the most symptomatic. Factor analysis found seven common factors from the 22 symptoms studied. Menopausal status based on menstrual history was signif-Icantly related to two groups of symptoms: vasomotor symptoms, which Increased through the menopausal transition; and general somatic symptoms which were more frequent in the perlmenopause. Analysis of variance of factor scores found fewer symptoms with Increasing years of education, better self-rated health, the use of fewer non-prescription medications, the absence of chronic health conditions, a low level of Interpersonal stress, the absence of premenstrual complaints, not currently smoking, exercise at least once a week, and positive attitudes to ageing and menopause.Conclusions: Many factors unrelated to hormonal changes contributed to the symptoms. Longitudinal Investigation Is needed to determine the relative Importance of hormonal, psychosocial and lifestyle variables in the aetiology of mid-life symptoms.(Med J Aust 1993; 159: 232-236) M enopause is a normal event experienced by women in midlife. Despite this, very little is known about the normal range of experience of this event and the factors which may influence women's adaptation during this transition.' Much of the accumulating medical literature focuses on the management of women who have presented to clinicians seeking help for troubling symptoms. Clinical experience provides no information about how representative these patients' symptoms are of the symptoms all women experience during the mid-life transition, or about the incidence and prevalence of these complaints. Further, there is no information about whether the frequency of complaints varies according to the physical, psychological or social health determinants of the women.Studies of representative samples of women drawn from general populations provide a better understanding of the menopausal transition. Most populatlon studies to date have been cross-sectional, in which the research strategy has been to compare women of different ages and/or menopausal status.s As there were few adequate data regarding Australian women's experiences of the mid-life years, the Melbourne Women's Midlife Health Project was developed. The establishment of a cross...

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