IMR Press / CEOG / Volume 38 / Issue 3 / pii/1630542843590-302975030

Clinical and Experimental Obstetrics & Gynecology (CEOG) is published by IMR Press from Volume 47 Issue 1 (2020). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with S.O.G.

Original Research
The attitudes of menopausal women and their spouses towards menopause
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1 Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing Department, Adnan Menderes University, Aydın School for Health Sciences
2 Department of Psychiatry, Adnan Menderes University
3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Adnan Menderes University, Aydin
4 Aydin Health Services Vocational College, Adnan Menderes University, Aydin (Turkey)
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 2011, 38(3), 251–255;
Published: 10 September 2011
Abstract

Objective: Menopausal experience and symptom reporting of the women was reported to be affected by their attitudes to menopause which in turn is influenced by a range of variables. In this study, we primarily tried to investigate the attitudes of women and their spouses towards menopause. The other aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between menopausal attitudes and menopausal symptom experience, depression and anxiety scores of the participants. Method: The sample included 60 physiological menopausal women and their spouses. Socio-demographic data were obtained with a questionnaire. The menopausal symptoms were measured through the Menopausal Rating Scale (MRS). The women and their spouses were administered the Attitudes Towards Menopause Scale (ATMS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Results: Both the menopausal women and their spouses had a positive attitude towards menopause. The women had a mean total score of 16.36 ± 7.62 on MRS (moderate). The mean somatic, psychological and urogenital sub-scores of MRS were 6.43 ± 3.23 (moderate), 5.97 ± 3.33 (moderate), and 3.93 ± 2.77 (moderate), respectively. There were no significant differences in BDI scores between the women and their spouses. However, the scores of BAI were more likely to be higher in women than their spouses (p < 0.0001). The current study revealed a significant positive correlation between MRS scores and BAI and BDI scores of the women. A significant negative correlation was found with the scores of ATMS, and scores of MRS in women. The scores of ATMS in men were significantly and negatively correlated with the total, somatic, and urogenital subscale scores of MRS in women. Conclusion: The main finding of this study was that both the menopausal women and their spouses had a positive attitude towards menopause. We also found that, the women who had more negative attitudes towards menopause reported more severe menopausal symptoms. Our results also demonstrated that the severity of menopausal complaints might be related to the attitudes of the husbands towards menopause.
Keywords
Menopause
Attitude
Woman
Spouse
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