Knowledge and attitude toward menopause phenomenon among women aged 40–45 years

BACKGROUND: Appropriate understanding of women that certain physical, mental, social and psychological changes occur during menopause helps them with greater readiness to cope with these changes. In all training programs to identify and analyze perceptions of the subjects is a key component. The purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge and attitude of women toward the menopause phenomenon. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 healthy and non-menopaused women aged 40–45 years. The stratified sampling method was used and participation in this study was based on obtaining informed consent. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire consisting of three parts: demographic information, questions to assess knowledge and attitude investigation questions. FINDINGS: The results showed that the average knowledge score of subjects was 63.57 ± 10.79, and their average attitude score was 61.21 ± 12.73. In this study, 8% of the subjects had poor knowledge, 68% had moderate knowledge and 38.5% had good knowledge. Meanwhile, 81.5% of the women had a positive attitude toward menopause. The correlation test showed that knowledge and attitude are meaningfully related to economic status and education level. But, the relationship between knowledge and attitudes of women under study was not significant. CONCLUSION: Identifying the quality of women's subjective perception of menopause has an essential role in the development of accurate and appropriate programs to promote women's health during menopausal years.