JOURNAL OF HOLISTIC NURSING / December 1999Pasquali / IMPACT OF PREMATURE MENOPAUSE The Impact of Premature Menopause on Women’s Experience of Self

Surgically or chemically induced premature menopause may have an impact on women’s sense of self: the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual sense of self. This ethnographic research study explores the major factors that assaulted prema-turely menopausal women’s concept of self and the ways in which they attempted to readjust that concept. A unifying domain, evolution of self, and three constitutive themes emerged: change/loss, connectedness/disconnectedness, and transcen-dence/transformation. A holistic nurse-client relationship that transcends the hospi-tal experience and extends into the community may help prematurely menopausal women to move toward a more synthesized sense of self and a greater degree of self-actualization. Approximately 654,000 women have hysterectomies each year, with ovariectomies being performed about 50 % of the time. An additional one out of every eight women develops breast cancer in their lifetime (National Cancer Institute, July 1998, personal communication) and may be treated with chemotherapy that can inactivate ovarian func-tioning. Such surgical and chemical intervention may precipitate pre-mature menopause. Yet, there is a paucity of research that deals with menopause in general and premature menopause in particula