Publication:

Psychological health problems and associated factors among perimenopausal women in rural Prayagraj

Background The perimenopause is an ill-defined time period that surrounds the final years of a woman’s reproductive life. It begins with the first onset of menstrual irregularity and ends after one year of amenorrhea has occurred. Various psychological illnesses also mark this period.

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 320 perimenopausal women aged between 40 to 55 years in rural Prayagraj. The study participants were interviewed and examined for psychological illnesses. A structured and predesigned questionnaire was used for the same. In this study, the scales used were PHQ-9, ISI, and GAD-7 for assessing depression, insomnia and anxiety respectively.

Results Study found average age of perimenopausal women to be 46.55±2.64 years. Among the psychological problems depression, insomnia and anxiety was analysed using scales- PHQ-9, ISI and GAD-7 respectively. It was found that 84.69% perimenopausal women had depression, 82.50% women had anxiety and only 35.31% women had insomnia. Of all women with depression majority had mild depression (70.94%). Regarding anxiety status majority had mild anxiety (68.13%). whereas 30.94% of women were found to have sub threshold insomnia.

Conclusions Present study shows association between psychological symptoms and employment status. Depression was found to be associated with type of family and age of woman. Insomnia was found to be associated with marital status and age of woman. Anxiety was found to be associated with type of family. Most common psychological morbidity among perimenopausal women was found to be depression.