ABSTRACT
There are many factors that may affect the onset of the menopause, particularly cigarette smoking. The purpose of this study was to determine which factors may influence the onset of the menopause in Trinidadian women. A consecutive sample of 384 post-menopausal women attending Chronic Disease Clinics in 12 randomly selected Health Centres in North Trinidad comprised the study population. A pretested interview-type questionnaire was the instrument used to collect the data. Our findings from 379 (98.7 per cent) respondents aged 45 - 81 (mean = 61.5) years showed a mean age at menopause of 49.3 years. There were more women of African (56.3 per cent) than East Indian (28.3 per cent) origin; 84.9 per cent of women were non-smokers, 40 (10.6 per cent) and 17 (4.5 per cent) were smokers and ex-smokers, respectively. The mean age of menopause in Trinidadian women who smoke was reduced by as much as 5 years (49.7 vs 44.6 years), while women who were ex-smokers showed a reduction in the age of onset of the menopause by 3 years (49.7 vs 46.5 years). Chi-squared test showed these differences to be significant (p = 0.00312). However, there were no relationships with nutritional status, parity, chronic disease status or the use of hormonal contraception. It was interesting to note that all the hypertensive women in this sample acquired the disease post-menopause and 95 per cent acquired diabetes mellitus similarly (AU)
