Health-related quality of life among menopausal women

Background: Menopausal symptoms impact physical, psychological, vasomotor, and sexual health-related quality of life (QOL) among women. Objective: This exploratory study aimed to assess the effects of menopausal symptoms on the QOL using Menopause-Specific QOL Questionnaire (MENQOL) among women in India. Materials and Methods: By purposive sampling, n = 140 women aged between 40 and 60 years were recruited, and the prevalence of menopausal symptoms and its relationship with physical, psychological, vasomotor, and sexual health-related QOL was assessed using MENQOL, at Arekare, Mico-Layout, Bangalore South, Karnataka, India. Results: The mean age at menopause was 49.59 + 3.09 years. Nearly 97.14% of women reported having experienced minimum five or more menopausal symptoms. The prevalence of symptoms in physical, vasomotor, psychological, and sexual domains was 74.56%, 60.7%, 44.68%, and 26.4%, respectively. An overall mean MENQOL score of physical (27.1 + 0.72), psychological (2.01 + 0.27), vasomotor (4.08 + 0.79), and sexual (3.89 + 0.59) health-related QOL among menopausal women showed poor QOL. Statistical significant differences were observed between the sociodemographic variables and the health-related QOL scores in all domains at P < 0.05. Conclusion: Menopausal women-centered integrated model of care would empower women to lead improved health-related QOL in the next one-third of postmenopausal life span development