effects of the counseling on life style of menopausal women and their husbands

ABSTRACT

By increasing the life expectancy, women experience longer menopause and more complications during this period of life. Men may also experience menopause. Improvement and treating the complications is based on the correcting the life style. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a counseling procedure on the life style of menopausal women and their husbands.This was an interventional study. 120 couples of menopausal women and their husbands were selected from Mohammadiyeh medical health center in Hamadan participated in the study. The participants were randomly divided to control and interventional groups. Initially, life style information was collected by a questionnaire through interview. Counseling about nutritional habits and physical exercise was performed for one hour in participants' houses. After two months there was first post test. Another counseling session and post test was performed similar to first one. Data was analyzed by Me Nemar, Paired T test, Wilcoxon, Independent T test and Chi- square tests, using SPSS 13. Results showed a significant difference in items such as food habits and physical activities of life style, before and after of first and secondary counseling process in women and men in intervention groups [P<0.05]. Counseling has significant effects on nutritional habits and physical activities of the menopausal women and their husbands. Counseling with couples particularly in their houses, is an effective intervention for improving of participants' life style