Health Status and Menopausal Knowledge among Rural and Urban Postmenopausal Women

Assessing health status and menopausal knowledge of women to develop educational package. Menopause Rating Scale was used to assess age related physical and psychological decline. PGI health questionnaire was used to assess the health status, self structured questionnaire menopausal knowledge on 80 rural and 80 urban women of Dharwad and Bagalkotee districts of Karnataka. The results revealed that 37% of urban women had mild menopausal symptoms, while 35% of the rural women reported severe menopausal symptoms. There was significant difference between rural and urban women in menopausal symptoms. SES, age, education and occupation was negative and significantly related with menopausal symptoms. It was observed that only 8-28% of women had high menopausal knowledge. SES, age, education and occupation was significantly related and associated with menopausal knowledge. There was significant difference between rural and urban women of both the districts in menopausal knowledge. 25-40% of rural and 15-25% of urban women reported severely affected health status. There was significant difference between rural and urban women in health status. There was negatively significant relationship observed between health status with SES, education, occupation. There was negatively significant interrelationship between knowledge regarding care and management of menopause and menopausal symptoms and health status. Concluded that proper educational intervention is necessary to improve the health status and knowledge regarding care and management of menopause among menopausal women.