FeatureA prospective population-based study of menopausal symptoms☆
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of The University of Melbourne, and procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the National Health and Medical Research Council. Subjects provided written informed consent for participation.
The study began in 1991 with the use of random telephone digital dialing to baseline interview 2001 Australian-born women between 45 and 55 years old and residing in Melbourne (71% response rate).2 Women at baseline who had menses
Results
The proportion of women who reported a particular symptom as bothersome in the previous 2 weeks for each category of menopausal status is given in Table 2.
By postmenopause, almost all women were reporting at least one symptom, and most were reporting five or more. The average total number of symptoms increased by 17%, from 4.2 to 4.9 (P < .001).
Figure 1 summarizes changes; 0 indicates no change. Severity scores for breast soreness were reduced in late perimenopause and postmenopause compared
Discussion
The findings of the present study were consistent with those of previous studies that middle-aged women were very symptomatic according to a checklist. Vasomotor symptoms were not the most frequently reported until 3 years after final menstrual periods. Our findings were similar to those of Avis et al,1 who reported the percentages of Massachusetts women who had five or more core symptoms as 23% for premenopausal women, 35% for perimenopausal women, and 32% for naturally postmenopausal women.
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Funding sources: Public Health Research Project Grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Australasian Menopause Society. Prince Henry’s Institute for Medical Research received a grant from Organon (Aust) Pty Ltd to measure the hormone levels.