Menopausal status and psychological distress: a cross-sectional survey among middle aged women in an urban slum area of Kolkata, India

Background: Menopausal symptoms and their relationship with the menopause transition vary widely. Although vasomotor symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats cause significant psychological distress, menopausal status could be an independent predictor of psychological distress in middle aged women. A cross sectional survey was thus conducted at the sector clinics of urban health centre of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata to determine the magnitude of the problem of psychological distress in relation to menopausal status.Methods: Women aged 40-55 years (n = 189) who visited the sector clinics during the study period (March 2011 to August 2011) were interviewed with the help of a pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire comprising of questions on socio-demographic factors, menstrual cycle and physical symptoms related to menopause. Questions assessing psychological distress were adopted from 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) after testing for reliability. Results: Most common menopausal symptoms were body and joint pain (60.3%), followed by hot flush (36.5%). Around 28.6% of the study subjects had evidence of psychological distress, which was more common among perimenopausal women (47.8%) Psychological distress was found to be significantly associated with menopausal status (p = 0.00002). Conclusion: The association between menopausal status and psychological distress indicated towards the need for organizing specific mental health services for middle aged women particularly in relation to menopause. Simple evaluation tool like GHQ-12 might be useful in initial assessment of such psychological distress by physicians and health workers at field level.