A successful correction of menopausal disorders depends on the woman’s awareness of menopause management issues.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the awareness of women about the prevention and correction of climacteric disorders
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We conducted a face-to-face and correspondence survey of 412 women. The average age of the patients was 49.0±7.58 [28; 65] years. At the time of the survey, 52.9% lived in the Russian Federation, 47.1% in the Republic of Azerbaijan, 50.5% in medium and small towns, 49.5% in large and big cities, 26.7% had incomplete secondary education, 40.8% had secondary education, 32.5% had higher education, 60.9% were employed, 63.3% were married. The questionnaire contained 20 statements about the timing, possibilities, and methods of managing health during the climacteric period with answer options: «yes», «no», and «don’t know.» We used SPSS to perform a frequency analysis of the answer options for 20 statements for all respondents, calculate the arithmetic mean of all answers for each respondent to determine «awareness», conduct a correlation analysis of age and «awareness», and compare the «awareness» in socio-demographic groups using the Mann—Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis criteria.
RESULTS
Most women responded «don’t know» to 17 of 20 statements. For nearly 77% of the respondents, hormonal menopausal therapy has more negative side effects; 83.5% are not aware of the timing of menopausal therapy; 7.3% are aware that the therapy reduces the risk of systemic diseases. The «awareness» did not correlate with age (r=0.04, p=0.390) and was similar in women living in Russia and Azerbaijan (p=0.217), big or medium and small cities (p=0.982), employed or housekeepers (p=0.274), with different family status (p=0.491) and level of education (χ2=2.34, (p=0.311).
CONCLUSION
Low awareness of women about controlling climacteric disorders does not depend on age, level of education, family status, or employment. It evidences the need for strengthening educational work in women’s health clinics.
