Abstract

MONTERROSA CASTRO, Alvaro; ROMERO PEREZ, Ivette  and  PATERNINA CAICEDO, Ángel. Joint and muscular discomfort, and not hot flashes, are the most frequent symptoms in middle-age menopause women from the Colombian Caribbean. Salud, Barranquilla [online]. 2010, vol.26, n.2, pp.179-188. ISSN 0120-5552.

Objective: Determine the frequency and severity of menopausal symptoms in a set of healthy middle aged women born and living in different communities of the Colombian Caribbean with menopause rating scale (MRS). Materials and Methods: Cross sectional study. Survey form and scale MRS were applied between November 2006 and January 2009 in healthy women between 40 and 59 years old, taken from communities in the Colombian Caribbean: Afro-descents, indigenous and Hispanic. We determined the frequency of symptoms and their severity. Results: Joint and muscular discomfort was the most frequent symptom in 72.9% of women, followed by hot flashes in 70.4%; irritability and physical and mental exhaustion were frequent, occurring in more than 60% of participants. Joint and muscular discomfort had the highest average score (1.6 + / -1.3), revealing that is a major contributor to a poorer quality of life. Considering severity of symptoms, joint and muscular discomfort was expressed as severe or very severe in 29.6%, followed by bladder problems in 23.2%. Conclusion: To improve the quality of life for women in menopause is important to characterize the climacteric symptoms in each population to provide better health care, discover strategies for managing symptoms, and promote lifestyles that help reduce its incidence and severity.

Keywords : Menopause; quality of life; Menopause Rating Scale; Colombian Caribbean; Menopausal Symptoms..

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