Impact of menopause symptoms on health related quality of life among menopausal women

Background: Menopause, an important and unavoidable physiological and biological change of a normal women. It is considered as another undesirable sign of ageing. Menopausal symptoms influences the psychological, physical, vasomotor and sexual health related quality of life of the women. Thus the current study was aimed to access the menopause related symptoms and their impact on the women’s quality of life using Menopause‑Specific QOL Questionnaire (MENQOL). Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 250 menopausal women and health‑related of QOL was assessed using menopause quality of life questionnaire (MENQOL). Results: The mean age at menopause was 46.63±2.15 years. Nearly 94.24% of women experienced more than five menopausal symptoms. The prevalence of symptoms in each domain of MENQOL was recorded as physicaldomain73.82%, vasomotor domain was 63.4%, psychologicaldomain 48.68%, and sexual domains (24.4%) accordingly. An overall mean MENQOL score of physical (30.72±3.67), psychological (12.49±3.25), vasomotor (4.59 ± 2.96), and sexual (3.975±2.33) health‑related QOL indicating poor quality of life after menopause. Statistical significant differences were observed between the demographic variables and the MENQOL scores in all domains at P < 0.05. The high MENQOL scores in all domains, showed menopausal symptoms was associated with poor quality of life. Conclusion: The present study finding concluded that the menopausal symptoms affects both physical and psychological aspect of women’s life. Ageing, educational status and sedentary life style contributes more towards the poor quality of life of menopausal women.