Hot flash, hot topic: conceptualizing menopausal symptoms from a cognitive-behavioral perspective

Abstract

While most healthy women report that the menopausal transition is nondistressing, a subset of women does report that symptoms significantly interfere in their lives. The most common reason that women seek treatment during this time is for vasomotor symptoms, namely, hot flashes and night sweats. Research has suggested that reports of distress during flashing are only weakly related to more objective measures of the flash, including duration and frequency and that differences in treatment-seeking during the menopausal transition may be better accounted for by differences in symptom awareness mediated by a variety of personality and stress factors. This paper discusses hot flashes and night sweats from a cognitive-behavioral perspective, taking into account individual difference variables that may also affect the experience of menopausal symptoms.