[Non-parametric estimation of the pattern of the age at natural menopause in Garmsar]

Based on WHO, menopause is defined as the permanent cessation of menstruation resulting from the loss of ovarian follicular activity which is recognized to have occurred after 12 consecutive months of amenorrhea, for which there is no other obvious pathological or physiological cause. It is the beginning of a phase of women's' life with somatic and metabolic changes which leads to decrease in quality of life, osteoporosis and heart diseases. Because of increasing the number of women experiencing post-menopausal life, studying the pattern of age in onset of menopause seems necessary. Non-parametric method to estimation the pattern of the age at natural menopause was introduced. For applied purpuses, data from a survey in Garmsar that it is performed on 581 women aged 30 years or older. The pattern of age at menopause was estimated for them using prevalence of menopause in each age group. The mean and median of age at natural menopause were 51.9 +/- 3.6 and 52.2, respectively. Increasing of menopause was slow from age 30 to 43, but a speed-up in monopause was observed until 55 years old, and then it was decreased slowly. compared to the other regions of Iran, the mean of age at natural menopause in Garmsar seems greater

[Analyzing the methodologies to estimate age at natural menopause and its effective factors]

Menopause, cessation of menstruation, is a public event for all women that occur between the ages of 45-55 [or even sooner]. A variety of researches done in Iran and the rest of the world show age at menopause can depend on numerous factors such as race and genetics, socioeconomics, history of fertility, physical activity, nutrition, sexual behaviors, diseases and etc. However, there are inconsistencies between results from different researches which can be related to methodology and methods of analysis. Present research has been done to analyze methodologies which estimate age at natural menopause and its associated factors by considering their power and weakness points. The cohort and cross-sectional methodologies to estimate age at natural menopause are introduced as well as appropriate statistical techniques to determine effective factors. Iranian and the some foreign papers, which their main object or one of the principle objects was estimating age at menopause, are introduced and analyzed. The results show that prediction and estimation of age at menopause are more complicated than it seems. Nearly all Iranian and some foreign surveys are poor in methodology and methods of analysis which decreases the efficacy and correctness of their findings