The effect of menopausal symptoms on the quality of life among postmenopausal Egyptian women

Abstract

Objective: The current study aims to assess the prevalence of menopausal symptoms among postmenopausal Egyptian women and their effect on the quality of these women's lives.Study design: A cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary university hospital between January and December 2017. We enrolled 350 postmenopausal women aged 45-70 years. All women were interviewed using the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire after translation into the Arabic language by a certified translation expert. The Mann-Whitney test and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare MENQOL item scores.Results: Low backache was the most common complaint among the study participants (86%). The sexual domain imposed the greatest impact on quality of life (mean = 3.12 ± 1.66), followed by physical (mean = 3.18 ± 0.92), psychological (mean = 3.08 ± 0.98), and vasomotor (mean = 3.01 ± 1.78) domains. Moreover, we found a significant positive moderate correlation between body mass index (BMI) and the total score (r = 0.689, p < 0.001). Multivariable linear regression analysis found that the best-fitting predictors for the MENQOL score were age (p < 0.001), BMI (p < 0.001), and exercise (p < 0.001).Conclusions: Physical symptoms were the most prevalent symptoms in this study. In general, older women, housewives, hand workers, less physically active women, and those of low socioeconomic status had poor quality of life.

Keywords: Menopause; hot flushes; quality of life.