Health behaviors of postmenopausal women

Introduction: Health status and health-related quality of life of postmenopausal women are issues, which nowadays pose a serious challenge to many domains of science. Climacteric symptoms which occur at this stage of life, lower its quality and make a negative contribution to self-reported health status, are mostly observed in a particular group of women. Evaluation of health behaviors performed using a standardized questionnaire, the Health Behavior Inventory (HBI), may help establish a comprehensive diagnosis of women’s health, and thus select effective interventions. A systemic approach to menopause assumes that full fitness of women and good quality of their lives can be maintained not only by means of pharmacotherapy but also other forms of action, especially health education oriented towards changes in the lifestyle and promotion of healthy behaviors.

The aim of this study is to perform a HBI-based assessment of women’s health behaviors in such categories as healthy eating habits (HEH), preventive behaviors (PB), positive mental attitudes (PMA), and health practices (HP).

Material and methods: The study involved 151 healthy postmenopausal women. A research tool was a standardized questionnaire, the Health Behavior Inventory (HBI).

Results: The surveyed women obtained 70% of the maximum score on average, which suggests a medium level of health behaviors in this group. The levels of health behaviors in the categories of positive mental attitudes and health practices significantly differed between older women and their younger counterparts (higher levels were observed among older respondents). There were also significant differences in the levels of healthy behaviors between women with secondary and higher education (those better educated declared healthy behaviors more often). There was no correlation between the level of health behaviors and the BMI of the surveyed women.

Conclusions: Older women attached greater importance to positive mental attitudes, and so they avoided tension, stress and depressing situations. They also attached more weight to health practices (HP), i.e. the number of hours devoted to sleeping, resting and physical activity. The main determinant of a healthy lifestyle was higher education.