Title: Association between Lifestyle and Severity of Menopausal Symptoms in Postmenopausal Women

Biography:

Nooshin Yoshany is PhD candidate in health education & promotion at Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences. She is the executive manager in Social Behavior Research & Health journal. She also works in Social Determinants of Health Research Center since 2013.

Abstract

Menopause is a physiological occurrence along with a series of bothersome symptoms. Given that lifestyle affects people's health and many menopausal symptoms are reduced by changing the lifestyle, this study aimed to determine the relationship between lifestyle and severity of menopausal symptoms in women referred to health centers in Yazd city.

Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 in Yazd city, Iran. By using stratified random sampling, 343 postmenopausal women were selected, who had experienced natural menopause for 1-5 years, and did not have any chronic or debilitating disease. The data collection tools were Walker's Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP2) and Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) questionnaires. A multiple hierarchical linear regression was used to investigate the adjusted association between lifestyle and severity of menopausal symptoms.

Results: The total mean (SD) score of menopausal symptoms severity and women's lifestyle were 10.21(SD = 6.55) and 126.44(SD = 79.27), respectively. The results of multiple hierarchical linear regression showed that, by increasing each lifestyle score, the mean score of menopausal symptoms severity significantly decreased in all three models (P-value <0.001).

Conclusion: The study concluded that healthy lifestyle reduces the severity of menopausal symptoms. Therefore, it is suggested that health policy makers in the design of postmenopausal care programs should pay special attention to the role of healthy lifestyles, including physical activity and healthy diet. Moreover, by preventing aggravation of menopausal symptoms, it is possible to economize on referrals to physicians and medicinal and therapeutic costs.