Aljumah, Rawan;
Phillips, Samantha;
Harper, Joyce C;
(2023)
An online survey of postmenopausal women to determine their attitudes and knowledge of the menopause.
Post Reproductive Health
10.1177/20533691231166543.
(In press).
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To explore postmenopausal women's attitudes and knowledge of the menopause. STUDY DESIGN: An online survey to evaluate women's attitudes and knowledge of the menopause, promoted via social media. In this study, only the data from 829 women who identified as postmenopausal were analysed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Quantitative and qualitative data. RESULTS: Regarding women's attitudes towards the menopause before they went through it, 18.0% were accepting of it, 15.8% were dreading it and 5.1% were looking forward to it. 38.1% of women felt that the menopause was difficult, 24.6% felt it was very difficult and 20.7% felt it was fine. 94.1% of women had never been taught about the menopause at school, and 49.0% did not feel informed at all about the menopause. More than 60% started looking for information regarding menopause as their symptoms started. The qualitative thematic analysis of the participants' responses produced six themes: the need for education, knowledge and understanding of symptoms, why is getting treatment so difficult, feelings and attitudes towards the menopause, the impact of menopause on a woman's life, the importance of the media - are they getting it right. CONCLUSION: Women's lack of education and their healthcare professionals' lack of adequate training on the menopause means that women enter this critical life stage uneducated and unsupported. It is vital that everyone is taught about the menopause and that general practitioners receive proper training. The negative narrative of menopause needs to be re-addressed to normalise the menopause and give postmenopause women hope.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | An online survey of postmenopausal women to determine their attitudes and knowledge of the menopause |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/20533691231166543 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20533691231166543 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2023. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Oestrogen, Perimenopause, hormone replacement therapy, menopause, postmenopause |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL EGA Institute for Womens Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL EGA Institute for Womens Health > Reproductive Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10168013 |
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