TY - JOUR
T1 - Prevalence of menopausal symptoms in Asian midlife women: a systematic review
AU - Islam, Mohammad Rakibul
AU - Gartoulla, Pragya
AU - Bell, Robin Jean
AU - Fradkin, Pamela
AU - Davis, Susan Ruth
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Objective To systematically review published articles for the prevalence of menopausal symptoms in Asian
women.
Methods A comprehensive and systematic literature search was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE,
PsycINFO, CINAHL, SCOPUS and Google scholar in June 2013 to retrieve all English-language studies that
included information on the prevalence of menopausal symptoms in women living in Asian countries. Risk
of bias of included studies was assessed using a risk-of-bias tool explicitly designed for the systematic review
of prevalence studies.
Results Twenty-three independent studies met our inclusion criteria. Physical symptoms were the most
prevalent symptoms compared to psychological, vasomotor and sexual symptoms. There was a wide variation
in the prevalence of all symptoms across the menopausal stages due to the differences in modes of recruitment,
study design, sampling procedures, the time frame over which symptoms were assessed and use of different
diagnostic or screening tools. A high level of bias was observed for both external and internal validity for
most studies.
Conclusion Although there is a wide variation in the reported prevalence of menopausal symptoms, physical
symptoms predominate, followed by psychological symptoms, vasomotor symptoms and sexual symptoms.
Further studies of representative samples are necessary to understand whether the variations in prevalence
reporting are a function of methodological issues or due to ethnic, cultural or other socioeconomic
differences.
AB - Objective To systematically review published articles for the prevalence of menopausal symptoms in Asian
women.
Methods A comprehensive and systematic literature search was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE,
PsycINFO, CINAHL, SCOPUS and Google scholar in June 2013 to retrieve all English-language studies that
included information on the prevalence of menopausal symptoms in women living in Asian countries. Risk
of bias of included studies was assessed using a risk-of-bias tool explicitly designed for the systematic review
of prevalence studies.
Results Twenty-three independent studies met our inclusion criteria. Physical symptoms were the most
prevalent symptoms compared to psychological, vasomotor and sexual symptoms. There was a wide variation
in the prevalence of all symptoms across the menopausal stages due to the differences in modes of recruitment,
study design, sampling procedures, the time frame over which symptoms were assessed and use of different
diagnostic or screening tools. A high level of bias was observed for both external and internal validity for
most studies.
Conclusion Although there is a wide variation in the reported prevalence of menopausal symptoms, physical
symptoms predominate, followed by psychological symptoms, vasomotor symptoms and sexual symptoms.
Further studies of representative samples are necessary to understand whether the variations in prevalence
reporting are a function of methodological issues or due to ethnic, cultural or other socioeconomic
differences.
UR - http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/13697137.2014.937689
U2 - 10.3109/13697137.2014.937689
DO - 10.3109/13697137.2014.937689
M3 - Article
SN - 1369-7137
VL - 18
SP - 157
EP - 176
JO - Climacteric
JF - Climacteric
IS - 2
ER -