European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Introduction: Women form the most important part of the family and society, and community health is dependent on the health status of the women. Menopause is biological event occurring in women that indicates the end of reproductive stage to non-reproductive stage. There are several scales for rating the quality of life of menopausal women like Menopausal specific Quality of Life scale [MENQOL], Cervantes Scale [CS], Midlife Women’s Symptoms Index [MSI], The Utain Quality of Life [UQOL], Menopause Rating Scale [MRS].Menopausal specific Quality of Life [MENQOL] is used to rule out common post- menopausal symptoms. It has 4 domains - vasomotor, psychosocial, physical and sexual health. Various studies from several countries have indicated that menopause is negatively related to Quality of Life (QOL) by menopause symptoms based on their severity.
Objectives: To Observe Socio demographic features of post-menopausal women residing in rural and urban areas
To analyse Quality of life among post-menopausal women
Methodology: A descriptive community based cross-sectional study conducted in the urban and rural field practice area of Prathima Institute of Medical Sciences, Karimnagar for period of 18 months (April 2018 - October 2019). 300 study participants were selected for the study. Women of age group 45-60 years, who attained natural menopause were included and Induced Menopause were excluded from the study.
Results: The mean age of the total study population was 54.21 + 4.02 (SD) years. The mean age of study population in urban area and rural area was 53.45 + 4.09 (SD) years and 54.97+3.83 (SD) years respectively. Among all scores of menopausal quality of life for each MENQOL domain ,it was observed that the highest mean score was in vasomotor domain (2.13±1.35), followed by physical (1.94± 0.98) then psychosocial (1.60 ± 0.74) and finally sexual symptoms (1.11± 0.29) which indicates that the quality of life of women was more affected by vasomotor symptoms compared to other symptoms.
Conclusion: Quality of life of menopausal women was significantly affected majorly by vasomotor symptoms followed by other menopausal symptoms. Poor quality of life was observed in rural menopausal women compared to urban menopausal women.