Perception and experience regarding menopause among menopaused women attending teaching hospitals in Erbil City.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The timing of menopause, perception as well as menopausal symptoms varies between populations and within populations. The main objective of the present study was to assess women's perception and experience regarding menopause, to find out symptoms and mean age of menopause and to study socio-demographic characteristics of menopaused women and to find out its relationship with their age at menopause and their knowledge about menopause. METHODS Over a period of eight months a descriptive cross sectional study were carried out at the outpatient departments of four teaching hospitals in Erbil city. A total of 500 menopaused women their age ranged from 40-60 years were interviewed using a close ended self administered questionnaire. RESULTS Mean age of menopause was 47.44 years with median age was 48 years, 4.4% had premature menopause and 23.6% had early menopause. The only factors that significantly associated with age at menopause were education and pattern of menstrual cessation and 93.4% of menopaused women were heard about menopause, 56.6% had prior knowledge of menopausal symptoms, cessation of menstruation was positive in 47.0% and 85.8% of women perceive menopause as natural condition and the most common menopausal symptoms were tiredness occurring in 83.2%. CONCLUSION Most of menopaused women perceive menopause as natural condition and not aware about hormone replacement therapy and the mean age of menopause is comparable to that mean reported in other part of Iraq. Among menopaused women tiredness was the most common complaint was followed by hot flushes and night sweats.