Assessment of the severity of menopausal syndrome and psychosomatic peculiarities

Hypothesis/aims of study. Hormonal changes in a woman’s body impacts many systems and organs, therefore the spectrum of menopausal symptoms varies greatly. The current analysis was undertaken to investigate the relationship between the severity of the menopausal syndrome, depending on the personality traits and typological characteristics of women, and the frequency of emotional and affective disorders.

Study design, materials and methods. A study was conducted based on V.A. Almazov National Medical Research Center in which 50 women aged from 44 to 56 years participated, the average age of menopause being 50.4 ± 0.5 years and the average duration of estrogen deficiency 3.3 ± 0.3 years. The study used: 1) Cooperman Index as modified by E.V. Uvarova; 2) Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale; 3) Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale; and 4) “The Level of Social Frustration” questionnaire.

Results. Climacteric complaints are most characteristic of married women with a high educational level and a prosperous financial state. When entering menopause (in women with preserved menstrual cycle), endocrine and metabolic complaints came to the fore, weight fluctuations prevailing among all the symptoms. 72% of women reported a weight increase of three and more kilograms, Dyshormonal hyperplasia of the mammary glands and pain in muscles and joints occurred equally often (62%). At the same time, for postmenopausal women, the most characteristic complaints were of the genitourinary syndrome. The neurovegetative syndrome was expressed in all women, regardless of the duration of the estrogen-deficient state and the severity of the menopausal syndrome. When studying the severity of the psycho-emotional syndrome, it was found that patients most often complained of fatigue and decreased performance (99%). Manifestations of depression were not characteristic of women with milder symptoms of menopause, while a high level of anxiety was typical for women with a moderate degree of the climacteric syndrome. For 12% of those women, the depth of depressive disorders corresponded to mild severity. Besides, a high level of anxiety and an average level of depressive manifestations were characteristic of women with severe severity of the menopausal syndrome.

Conclusion. The data obtained show that the more severe the manifestations of the menopausal syndrome, the higher the severity of affective disorders.