ABSTRACT
Background: Climacteric symptoms have a direct relationship with biological and sociocultural factors and significantly impair the quality of life of women. Aim: To assess quality of life and factors affecting it in women aged 40 to 59 years. Material and methods: The Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) was applied to 370 healthy women aged 49 ± 6 years, that accompanied patients to public hospitals in Santiago. Results: Forty four percent of women were postmenopausal and 6 percent used hormone replacement therapy. Half of the group had less than 12 years of formal education and 67 percent had a couple. The mean number of children was 2.8 ± 1.5. Total MRS score was 16.2 ± 8.5. The higher score was given by the psychological domain (7.7 + 4.4), followed by the somatic domain (5.8 ± 3.5). The urogenital domain had the lowest score (2.7 ± 2.9). Eighty percent of women had moderate to severe climacteric symptoms. A logistic regression analysis showed that the postmenopausal condition was the factor that caused the greatest derangement in quality of life, followed by her parity. Formal education had the lowest impact. Conclusions: In this sample of women, menopause significantly deteriorated quality of life and sociocultural factors such as the parity also had an impact.