Western women in their fifties are in the prime of their professional and personal careers. Yet at this age the impending onset of menopause – with its physical and emotional changes – might affect their quality of life.
Recent research by Dr. Ronit Haimov-Kochman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Hadassah-Mt. Scopus describes some of the causes.
Dr. Haimov-Kochman’s study involved 151 healthy women between the ages of 45 and 55 who had come to the Premenopausal Clinic at Hadassah-Mt. for routine check-ups. While there, they were asked to fill out an anonymous questionnaire that included a demographic profile, lifestyle profile, a premenopausal phenomenon scale and a quality of life scale.
The premenopausal phenomenon scale listed symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and sexual function. The quality of life scale included personal, professional, health and sexual questions. Two common scales were used to measure these variables: the Greene scale for premenopausal phenomenon and the Utian scale for quality of life.
The women’s responses to the two scales revealed marked disparities and contradictory information.
The results of the premenopausal phenomenon scale showed that the premenopausal symptoms worsen as menstruation changes from regular to irregular until it ceases. They indicated that the worst manifestations were hot flashes, night sweats and sexual dysfunction. Despite that, the women also indicated that their quality of life remained unchanged during the passage from regular menstruation to menopause.
Yet, on quality of life scale, the women indicated that the premenopausal symptoms caused a significant decline in their quality of life. The correlation between their emotional and psychological state, the physical symptoms, sexual dysfunction and quality of life, was particularly strong. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, there was not a strong correlation between hot flashes and night sweats and quality of life.
The most surprising finding was that the number of children the women had appeared to play an important role in their quality of life. Women with three or more children reported greater satisfaction compared to women with two children or less. Researchers posited that this finding could be related to the women’s cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
The researchers concluded that demographic characteristics play a more important role in the premenopausal quality of life of Israeli women than the premenopausal phenomenon. The number of children was perceived to be a meaningful variable, followed by the effects of mental, physical and sexual premenopausal phenomenon.