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KMID : 1159920060070020111
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Korean Journal of Women s Health
2006 Volume.7 No. 2 p.111 ~ p.124
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Women`s Perceptions and Experiences of Menopause
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Son Seung-Ah
Cho Young-Mi
Yang Seung-Ae
Park Sun-Young
Shin Mee-Kyung
Lim Eun-Joo
Kweon Yoo-Rim
Jeon Hae-Ok
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Abstract
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As women live longer and their post-menopausal life is prolonged accordingly, menopause has emerged as an important health issue for women. Despite the fact that menopause is a natural stage in a woman’s life cycle, it has been regarded as an object of treatment based on the biomedical model and viewed negatively in the traditionally patriarchal socio-cultural context. But, the experience of menopause varies widely among individuals depending on their perceptions, life events and the socio-cultural context of their menopausal period, and consequently, individual responses to menopause are different from one another. The objective of this study is to examine women’s perceptions of and responses to menopause, to identify the essence of their menopausal experiences, and to understand how women themselves perceive and deal with the menopausal transition, thereby to provide input for women’s health promotion programs and further to present a framework for changing the social perception of menopause. This study is a narrative research using qualitative research methods to find out women’s perception of and responses to menopause. Open-ended, non-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to collect information. The study was conducted on 6 women between the ages of 60 and 68 who have not received hormone therapy after natural menopause.
In conclusion, this study shows that the participants depicted how to meet and cope with the menopause in different ways based on their perceptions and perspectives of life. And this study reflect that women interpret the menopause independently far different from the existing medical, male-dominant and socio-cultural view. The result of this study suggest that an overall and unique women’s health promotion program on this particular issue with consideration of socio-cultural context is strongly required.
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KEYWORD
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menopause, qualitative research, multidisciplinary women`s health promotion program, socio-cultural context
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