The effect of menopausal symptoms on women’s daily life activities

Introduction
With the increase in expected life duration, the life expectancy increases, and so one-third or more of a woman’s life will be after the menopause. As a result, menopause, aging physiology and process management carry great importance for women’s health. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of menopausal symptoms on women’s daily life activities.

Material and methods
The sample of the descriptive and relationship-seeking study consisted of 381 women aged 40–64 years who agreed to participate in the study. The data of the study were collected by Personal Information Form, Menopause Symptoms Rating Scale, and Daily Living Activities Schedule. Descriptive statistical techniques were used to evaluate the data. Differences in independent groups were evaluated with Student’s t-test and one-way ANOVA. The relationship between continuous variables was evaluated with the Pearson correlation analysis test.

Results
Of women participating in the research, 67.5% had not had a period for more than one year, and 95.5% entered the menopause through natural routes. The daily life activities most affected by the menopausal symptoms experienced by women were sleep, concentration, physical and mental fatigue, mental state, general quality of life, and enjoyment of life. The least affected daily living activities were sexuality and interpersonal communication. Advanced level significant positive correlations were found between the menopause rating scale and its sub-dimension scores and daily living activities scores of women (p < 0.05).

Conclusions
The results of this study showed that menopausal symptoms in the menopausal period negatively affected the daily activities of women.