Menopause Women in Saudi Arabia

Letter to Editor

Menopause is an important period of women life it is a normal physiological process, defined as the permanent cessation of menses for 12 months or more [1,2].

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, premenopausal women are those who have experienced regular menstrual bleeding within the last 12 months, premenopausal women are defined as those women who have experienced irregular menses within the last 12 months or the absence of menstrual bleeding for more than 3 months but less than 12 months, and postmenopausal women are those who have not experienced menstrual bleeding for 12 months or more. Women with iatrogenic menopause are those for whom periods have stopped as a result of a medical or surgical intervention, for example, due to chemotherapy or radiation of ovaries, hysterectomy or oophorectomy, or both. The age at natural menopause is between 45 years and 50 years. Early menopause is defined as menopause occurring before the age of 45 years, while premature menopause occurs before the age of 40 years [1].

According to the statistics of Saudi Arabia 2017, Saudi population (20,408,362), female represents (49.06%). The same statistics shows that Saudi female more than 65 years old represent (51.1%) [3]. Most of Saudi women in went into menopause between 51-55 years [4]. Study done by Hassan M. Al-Musa noticed moderately poor quality of life due to menopausal Symptoms observed among menopause group [5].

One of the main issues is lack of specialized menopause clinics or menopause groups in most of the area. Also, most of the women are afraid of hormonal replacement therapy.

According to the vision of 2030, the expectant age will prolong to more than 75 years old. So according to that, the health provider must work to establish a more specialized clinic to enhance the health of women in this age and to reduce the comorbidities and the cost related to it.

References

1. World Health Organization. Research on Menopause in the 1990s: Report of WHO Scientific Group. Geneva: World Health Organization
2. Soules MR, Sherman S, Parrott E, Rebar R, Santoro N, Utian W, et al. Executive summary, stages of reproductive aging workshop (STRAW) Fertil Steril. 2001; 76: 874–878.
3. General authority for statistics. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
4. Mufareh Asiri, Majed Al shahrani, Hajer Alamer, Shoug Alkhursan, Huda Alhashem, Enas Alshashaa, et al. Awareness and Perceptions towards Menopause among Saudi Women. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research. 2018; 9.
5. Hassan M Al-Musa, Razia Aftab Ahmed, Awad S, Alsamghan, Safar Abadi, Mohamed Abadi Saeed Al-Saleem, Abdullah Abdu, et al. The prevalence of symptoms experienced during menopause, influence of Socio-demographic variables on symptoms and quality of life among women at Abha, Saudi Arabia. Biomedical Research. 2017; 28.