Symptom monitoring improves physical and emotional outcomes during menopause: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Objectives: A recent systematic review suggested that symptom monitoring can result in reductions in menopausal symptoms and improvements in health-related behaviors. To date, no studies have experimentally investigated whether symptom monitoring could be a beneficial intervention during the menopause transition. Methods: One hundred perimenopausal and postmenopausal women (mean age, 46 y; SD, 8 y) were randomized into either a monitoring-intervention or control group. A mixed between/within design was used, with group membership (ie, monitoring-intervention or control) as the between-subjects component and time (ie, baseline and 2-wk follow-up) as the within-subjects component. Dependent variables included symptom reductions and emotional reactions as measured via the Daily Record Keeping form. Secondary outcomes included help-seeking, communication, medical decision making, health awareness, self-efficacy, and health anxiety. Results: A linear mixed-effects model demonstrated that the monitoring-intervention group reported a 42% reduction in physical symptoms at follow-up versus a 12% reduction in the control group: ρ = 0.009, β = 6.3, 95% CI (1.5-11). Negative emotions also significantly reduced in the monitoring-intervention group but did not alter in the control group: ρ < 0.001, β = 3.4, and 95% CI (1.6-5.2). These effects remained significant after controlling for potential moderator variables such as trait neuroticism and coping preferences and potential confounders such as medical and demographic characteristics. Variances in other health outcomes were nonsignificant. Conclusions: Findings demonstrated that symptom monitoring reduced symptoms and negative emotions within a perimenopausal and postmenopausal sample, and these outcomes endured after controlling for key moderators and covariates. However, symptom monitoring was not related to improvements in health-related behavioral outcomes, which contrasts with previous findings. These findings show that symptom monitoring may be useful within healthcare settings by providing perimenopausal and postmenopausal women with a simple and accessible means of symptom alleviation while they await treatment or medical consultation.

The Health & Her App is Associated with Improved Symptom Outcomes Among 1,900 Menopausal Women

“…These findings remained significant after controlling for covariates such as HRT use, hormonal contraceptive use, supplement use, age, and current comorbidities. These findings are in line with prior research in the field of female health which has demonstrated that symptom monitoring during menopause and use of digital health apps which enable period logging and digital health promoting activities are associated with health improvements (5,6,3,4).…”

“…Of the four symptom domains evaluated, reporting psychological and cognitive symptoms at baseline was associated with the greatest reductions in symptom scores across the 2-month period. This outcome may further evidence findings from Andrews et al's (6) randomised trial, which demonstrated that a daily symptom monitoring intervention was associated with reductions in stress and anxiety, brain fog, low energy, and poor concentration, all of which were assessed as psychological and cognitive symptoms in the present study.…”

“…Moreover, greater weekly engagement with the app was associated with greater reductions in symptoms. These results support previous findings which have suggested that symptom monitoring and use of digital tools which facilitate period logging, and health-promoting digital activities can be beneficial for improving health outcomes, especially relating to psychological and cognitive complaints (5,6,3,4). However, these findings are limited by the observational study design.…”

“…In our study, the total number of days spent monitoring symptoms independently predicted symptom reductions. This is in-line with prior research which has demonstrated that symptom monitoring can result in reductions in menopausal symptoms (5,6). However, combined weekly engagement with the app was associated with greater reductions in symptoms than symptom monitoring alone, suggesting that using multiple facets of the Health & Her app can bestow greater benefits to the user.…”

Does Health & Her app use improve menopausal symptoms? A longitudinal cohort study

“…Figure 1 shows menopausal symptoms and their frequency distributions in the cohort. Using the methods employed in previous research using the daily record keeping form, 6 8 symptom scores were calculated for each instance the user logged their symptoms by multiplying total number of symptoms with their average symptom severity, for example, hot flushes (severity=1), sleeping problems (severity=2), night sweats (severity=3) would result in a total symptom score of=6. A continuous symptom difference score was calculated to observe how symptoms increased or decreased throughout the 2-month app usage period.…”