Abstract:

Menopause is a medical term indicating the absence of menstrual bleeding for one year, but the term climacteric is used for the entire processes including premenopause, perimenopause and postmenopause. This research was conducted between March 2007-June 2007, with the aim of determining the attitudes and menopausal symptom of women in climacterium period.In this research it was determined that the 53,2% of women were between 45-54 years old, 50,4% were graduates of primary school and 95,2% were married. The rate of the women’s using HRT was found to be 19,8%. Among the women the most widely experienced symptoms related to menopausal period were lack of sleeping (69,0%), feeling of tiredness (87,0%), joint pain (79,0%), nervousness-feeling of tension (82,0%), feeling of hot flushes (79,2%), and heart beats (64,4%). In this study it was determined that the attitude of women about menopause is negative and it was concluded that the combination of variables such as physical changes, social and cultural influences and individual perceptions are very important in determining the so called menopausal attitudes. It is important that climacteric women must have psychological support, health education and adequate counseling. With this respect, nurses take an important role in giving this help by applying consultance function.

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