A Community Based Study on Association of Menopausal Stage with Metabolic Health, Anemia, and MENQOL Scores in Postmenopausal Women

Background

Menopause, an early transition in Indian women, impacts well-being and quality of life, with experiences influenced by socioeconomic disparities and phases of reproductive aging.

Purpose

There is limited comparative data on the health status and QOL, this research was done in a bid to evaluate and compare metabolic health, anemia status, comorbidities, and QOL in urban rural and senile climacteric postmenopausal women.

Materials and Methods

A cross-sectional community-based study involving 500 postmenopausal women (250 from rural areas and 250 from urban areas) employed structured interviews and the MENQOL questionnaire was used to evaluate sociodemographic, clinical, comorbidity, and hemoglobin parameters, with data analyzed through descriptive statistics, t-tests, and chi-square tests.

Results

Prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and anemia were 19.8%, 31.4%, 39.8% and 68.8% respectively. Also, there levels were greatly higher among senile women than in climacteric women (p<0.001). But difference between rural and urban was not significant (p>0.05). MENQOL result indicated that married, menopausal stage, education and marital status were related significantly with QOL (p<0.05). Place of residence, occupation, parity and family type didn’t have a significant relationship with MENQOL. Rural and urban women had same domain scores in vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, and sexual domain.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that menopausal stage, rather than place of residence, is the principal determinant of menopause-specific quality of life. Senile women exhibited poorer metabolic health, greater morbidity, and lower MENQOL scores than climacteric women. The study is strengthened by its comparative design and use of the validated MENQOL instrument, although its cross-sectional nature and potential recall bias limit causal inference. Multicentric longitudinal studies incorporating biochemical and genetic markers are warranted to validate these findings.