Menopause-specific quality of life satisfaction in community-dwelling menopausal women in China

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the satisfaction with quality of life of menopausal women living in an urban community of Beijing, People's Republic of China, using the Chinese version of the menopause-specific quality of life questionnaire (MENQOL). Menopause-related complaints were assessed for 353 women aged 40-60 years during their menopausal transition (MT) or postmenopause (PM) using MENQOL. The Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and Pearson correlation were used for statistical analysis. The mean age of the subjects was 51.20 +/- 4.62 years. The most frequent symptom was 'experiencing poor memory' (84.1%) and the least frequent was 'dissatisfaction with personal life' (26.9%). Mean scores of vasomotor and sexual symptoms in PM women were higher than in MT women (2.60 +/- 1.74 and 3.39 +/- 2.35 vs. 1.96 +/- 1.46 and 2.10 +/- 1.48, respectively; p = 0.0001). The prevalence of menopause-related symptoms varied between self-assessed health status groups (chi(2) = 29.12, p = 0.0001). In conclusion, MENQOL is a good self-administered tool in the assessment of climacteric complaints, with convenient application. The most frequent climacteric symptom of Chinese women living in an urban community was 'experiencing poor memory'. PM women seemed to suffer from more symptoms, especially in vasomotor and sexual domains, than did MT women. Symptom reports might be associated with self-assessed health status.