Health Care Seeking Practice for Menopausal Problems among Women in Syangja District, Nepal. -

Introduction: Menopause is a normal physiological change experienced by middle age women. It has become a major public health concern around the world. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to find out the health care seeking practice among 140 women having natural menopause from Putali bazar Municipality of Syangja district, Nepal. Data was collected through face to face interview by using interview schedule. Results: This study revealed that 97.1% had at least one of the menopausal problems, namely somatic (84.3%), psychological (76.4%) and urogenital (44.4%). Among the somatic problems, joint and muscular discomfort (84.7%), hot flushes (44.3%), sleep problems (42.9%) and heart discomfort (35.7%) were reported. Among psychological problems, anxiety (67.9%), irritability (40.7%), depressive mood (30.7%), physical and mental exhaustion (29.3%) and among urogenital problems, bladder problem (32.9%), sexual problems (11.4%), dryness of vagina (9.3%) were also reported by the respondents. Regarding treatment seeking behavior, about 65.5% were found to be consulting for urogenital problems and 38.3% for psychological problems and 32.2% for somatic problems. Among the respondents who seek health care services, majority of the respondents consult directly to the pharmacy rather than hospital for psychological and urogenital problems but 81.1% respondents found to be consulted in hospital for somatic problems. Conclusion: The findings revealed that majority of the respondents were ignorant regarding health seeking behavior of menopause related problems, so there is strong need of programmatic effort to educate the women to make them aware of menopausal problems through appropriate awareness programs.