Perceived social support and attitude of women towards menopause in Kaski

Abstract

Strong perceived social support positively affects women’s attitudes towards menopause and is correlated. The objective of the study is to find out perceived social support and attitude of women towards menopause in Kaski. Cross sectional research design was adopted. Probability simple random sampling technique was used to select 198 women belongs to 45 to 65 years residing in Kaski district. Face to face interview technique with structured interview schedule was used. The data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Out of 198 women, 60.6% of the women were between the ages of 50 to 59 years. The mean age was 54.06±5.35 years. Among them 84.8% were married, 80.3% were in postmenopausal period and 76.7% had natural menopause. Only 15.2% of the women had received hormonal replacement therapy. In this study, 13.6% of the women had low level, 53.5% of the women had moderate and 32.8% of the women had high level of support. Similarly, 40.9% of the women had positive and 59.1% of the women had negative attitude towards menopause. There was significant association between the level of perceived social support and attitude of women towards menopause at p value <0.001. Mild positive correlation was observed between perceived social support and attitude score. It is concluded that more than half of the women had moderate level of support and negative attitude on menopause. Information on menopause and spousal support should be improved for the increment of perceived social support and improvement of attitude of women towards menopause.