Midlife womens health and the menopause

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Mid-life womens health and the menopause

• Pamela A. Jacobs
• School of Psychology
• University of Plymouth

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Aim Studies

• Using a quality of life perspective to examine
  the psycho-social aspects of womens mid-life
  health during the menopause.
• To evaluate the impact of declining sex hormone
  levels on memory in elderly women
• Qualitative methods focus groups and interviews
  
• Cross-sectional questionnaire based studies
• Planning stage of experimental study
• Recruitment through health authority patient
  lists. 2 large scale studies SW and national.
• Advertising womens magazines, libraries,
  chemists, health food shops, university, social
  services.
• random sample from telephone directories

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Measures

• MQOL scale 48 items, 7 domains, energy, sleep,
  appetite, cognition, mood, social interaction,
  symptom impact.
• Minor health complaints 5 domains, respiratory,
  atopic, gastro, Indicators, fungal.
• Diet
• Prescription drug use in the last 2 months
• Physical fitness indicator
• Relevant medical history i.e. hysterectomy,
  history of menstrual cycle problems.
• History of HRT use
• Menopausal status and SRMS
• Psychological measures LOC Stress level
  indicator
• CAM use scale
• Biographical information i.e. employment,
  education, age, marital status

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Our Previous Studies

• Development of a Menopausal Quality of Life
  Scale. Domains sleep, energy, social
  interaction, symptom impact, cognition, mood,
  appetite. Alpha scores ranged from .69 - .91 for
  each domain. Convergent validity r .66.
• Determinants of quality of life work status
  health status and menopausal status,.
• Determinants of HRT use menopausal status, QOL (
  symptom impact, cognition), hysterectomy, health
  status.

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Previous Studies

• Many women took HRT for only a short time, mean
  use 8 months range of 2 weeks to 8 years.
• Role of Hormones and prescription drugs in QOL
• Prescription drug use was higher in HRT user
  groups than non users
• HRT users who also took prescription based drugs
  had significantly lower mean length of HRT use.
• Significant association between length of HRT use
  and health
• Those who took HRT plus SSRIs reported
  significantly better QOL than those who took
  SSRIs alone

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Current Studies

• Mid-life womens use of Complementary
  Alternative Medicine to improve QOL
• Mid-life womens diet and minor health complaints
  analysis of data
• Health scares and hormone use how have women
  and GPs reacted to information about HRT?

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Future studies

• The impact of hormone levels on cognitive
  functioning.
• System effect ( attention) or specific effects (
  verbal memory )
• Window of opportunity for supplement use to bring
  beneficial effects?
• Do all estrogens have the same effect on memory?