[Experience and knowledge about climateric and menopause in women in Mexico City]

To know the experiences and knowledge about climateric and menopause in a group of women covered by Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS). The purpose was to contribute for planning some strategies to increase seeking for medical care at these periods of life.

Descriptive survey study in a randomized sample of women aged 50-59 years, currently users of medical services in family medicine system of IMSS en Mexico City, with a confidence interval of 95%.

Mean age at menopause was 47.8 years. Most frequent climateric symptoms were: hot flushes (70.9%), depression (60.2%), insomnia (53.5%) and menstrual disturbances (37.8%). 51.1% of women seeked medical care due to climateric symptoms but only 12.1% received treatment, majority hormonals (81.6%). Past users were 14.9% and they received hormones too in 87.8%. In this survey, 83.8% of women had some knowledge about main symptoms of climateric and 90.1% knew about osteoporosis but only 37.2% had some knowledge about cardiovascular risk after menopause. The prevention of osteoporosis and coronary disease was associated with calcium and exercise; only in 1% with use of hormonals.

It exists an acceptable level of information about climateric syndrome and postmenopausal osteoporosis in these women, but it is low for risk of cardiovascular disease. Probably, their information is got from the mass media communication and did not for the activities of medical institutions in health education.