Experience of Middle Age Women regarding Menopause in Alexandria

Menopause is a beginning of another phase of women s life. Women s experience of thiscritical phase probably influenced by their attitude, knowledge and follow-up practices.Objective: Assess the menopausal symptoms among middle age women and identify theirknowledge, attitude and practices toward menopause in Alexandria. Settings: The study wascarried out in 8 family health centers in Alexandria. Subjects: 240 middle age women (45 toless than 60 years old) were included in the study. Tools: Four tools were used for datacollection: socio demographic characteristics and health status structured interview schedule,the menopause rating scale for the women to assess the menopausal symptoms among middleage women. The third tool was, the modified attitude rating scale, and women s knowledgetoward menopause structured interview schedule. Results: Findings of the present studyrevealed that around one tenth of the women were bothered by severe and very severemenopausal symptoms. Less than half had poor knowledge toward menopause, while 56.7%were non-compliant with follow up practices during menopausal transition. Additionally,slightly less than half of the women had a negative attitude toward menopause. Conclusion:The study concluded that the women had poor knowledge toward menopause which reflect ontheir attitude and follow up practices. Recommendations: Health care providers need to playa more visible role in continuously assessing menopausal women s needs as well as toimplement appropriate health education program to raise their awareness and to improvetheir knowledge, attitude, and follow up practices toward menopause.