Menopausal Symptoms Management Decision Aid Trails: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objectives: The present study systematically reviewed the literature on the effects of menopausal symptom management aids on knowledge, decision conflict, and satisfaction about menopause-related symptom management. Methods: All clinical trial and quasi-experimental studies published in English-language from 1990 to 2021 were searched in CINAHL, PROQUEST, Web of Sciences, Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus databases. In addition, we used the Ovid search interface for MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, and Cochrane Library. The effect of interventions on continuous outcomes, including knowledge, decisional conflict, and decisional satisfaction, with a standardized mean difference (SMD), was reported in the present study. The included studies were assessed for statistical heterogeneity by using the I² test and examining the P value. Results: The results indicated the limited effect of the decision aid-based intervention on the decisional conflict, satisfaction with the decision, and knowledge. However, it is worth mentioning that the findings indicated high heterogeneity among the studies reviewed in the present study. Conclusions: In the previous studies, the decision aid booklets used mostly provided limited and incomplete information on the available strategies to alleviate the symptoms perceived in menopause, so design and conduct a study with a strong, robust methodology and a comprehensive decision aid tool to alleviate the symptoms of menopause and study of its impact on postmenopausal women’s decision making is necessary.