Abstract:
Objective: To evaluate the quality of life and associated factors in a sample of premenopausal, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women from Upper Egypt.
Patients and Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried on 526 women attending the outpatient clinic of GYN/OBST Department of Sohag University Hospital in the period from April 2009 to December 2009, who aged 45 years or above. Each woman was asked to fill in a questionnaire, which consisted of 2 parts; the first part included sociodemographic and reproductive data; age, age at menopause, body mass index, education level, occupation, family income, number of living children, sexual activity in the last year, history of medical morbidities and regular physical activity. The second part included questions about the quality of life, and was assessed by the Women Health Questionnaire (WHQ), which has 36 items divided into the areas of somatic symptoms, depressed mood, cognitive difficulties, anxiety, sexual satisfaction, vasomotor symptoms, disorders sleep, and menstrual symptoms.
Results: The mean age of the participants was (52.31 ± 3.72). The mean age at menopause was (49.82 ± 4.61) years. 252 of the participants were postmenopausal (47.91%), while, 176 (33.46%) and 98 (18.63%) participants were perimenopausal, and premenopausal respectively. The premenopausal women had better scores of quality of life, than the scores of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. No significant differences in scores of quality of life scores were identified between perimenopausal, and postmenopausal. The scores of quality of life were significantly better among perimenopausal and postmenopausal women who had nine or more years of schooling (p <0.01), those with monthly family income of 500 Egyptian pounds or more (p <0.05), those who had sexual activity in the last year (p <0.05), those who practice regular exercise (p <0.01), those who had BMI ≤30kg/m2 (p < 0.05) and those who had no medical comorbidities (p <0.01).
Conclusions: Perimenopausal and postmenopausal Women have poorer quality of life than premenopausal women. Improving the financial conditions, attaining a higher education level, avoiding sedentary life and obesity, and treatment of medical comorbidities could be associated with a better quality of life.