[The meanings attributed to the voice by menopause women].

OBJECTIVE To analyze the meanings attributed to the voice by menopausal women. METHODS Data were collected from 148 medical records of women seen in the Climacteric Women Health Program of the Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericordia Gynecology Outpatient Clinic in Curitiba, Brazil, between February 2000 and October 2001. Of them, 30 women aged between 48 and 59 years who did not consider themselves as voice professionals and had been at least 12 months in amenorrhea were selected. They were interviewed using a thematic guide with semi-structured questions. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed. Their description, analysis, and interpretation were based on social representation of the collective individual's discourse through a hermeneutics-dialectics approach. RESULTS The resulting 27 collective discourses showed that women related their voice to biological and psychological characteristics and social aspects of daily life, identifying vocal changes during their life course. CONCLUSIONS Social representations of communicational and functional nature were observed and highlight voice as an element of personal identity construction conceived in the social sphere. There is a need for further research based on social sciences as well as epidemiological studies and to examine voice therapy in a frailer larynx and also prioritize voice health as part of comprehensive health care delivered to climacteric women.