نگرش زنان در مورد يايسگي و عوامل مرتبط با آن

Attitudes toward Menopause and Associated Factors in Females Referring to Health Centers of Tabriz

Background and Objectives: Natural menopause is commonly defined in the epidemiological literature as the time when a women has experienced 12 consecutive months of amenorrhea without an obvious intervening cause, such as exogenous hormone use, dietary deficiencies, or surgical removal of the uterus or ovaries. In this period, women face endocrine, somatic and psychotic changes. These changes are due to aging of ovaries and estrogen deficiency. The eventual cessation of menstrual periods, is attributed to the loss of ovarian lollicole. Mean age of menopause is not the same in different societies and is influenced by various factors. Some of these factors are well understood and ohers are not. This research was carried out to determine he mean age of natural menopause in Tabriz women and their attitude to this phenomenon and the related factors. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out to determine mean age of menopause in Tabriz women and their attitudes toward natural menopause. 448 post-menopause women and 256 non-menopause women were studied using ramdomised clustered sampling technique. Questionnaires were filled by menopause and non-menopause subjects and the data were analysed with SPSS using ANOVA and I-test. Results: Findings of this study indicated that the mean age of menopause was 47.38. The highest frequency (43.75%) was in 46-50 years. Positive attitude was collected from 25.45% of women, while negative and neutral attitudes were recorded in 55.13% and 19.42% , respectively. No significant correlation was found between age of menopause and age at menarch, oral contraceptive use and ciggarette smoking. The most prevalent sings associated with menopause, were vaginal discharge, post-menopausal bleeding, reduced libido, osteoporosis, anxiety, insomnia and hot flushes. Conclusion: Tabriz women showed relatively low age of menopause and they mainly had negative attitudes to this phenomenon. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups studied, hefor and after menopause, regarding their positive or negative attitudes.