The menopausal transition: guidelines for researchers

We believe that the menopausal transition can be eased for women if they have information about normal changes they can anticipate. Until now, research on the subject of menopause has been fragmented and flawed, in large part because an "oppositional approach" to the study of menopause has pitted biology against culture and has slowed progress toward a more fruitful interactive approach. Failure to agree on basic definitions has contributed further to fragmentation. Future research efforts must employ healthy, non-clinical samples and prospective designs that will avoid recall problems. Women must be at the center of this research, as respondents whose experiences and interpretations of these experiences become the focus of study. It is the normalcy of menopause that remains undocumented (Voda & George, 1986). When research has identified a range of experiences common to the menopausal transition for healthy women, it will be possible for aging women and their health care providers to make accurate assessments of their individual patterns of change. It is anticipated that studies will document a wider range of changes as normal than is currently accepted, perhaps reducing the number of interventions occurring when pathology is identified incorrectly. Studies with a bi-directional focus will make possible an understanding of the mutual influences of biology and culture on premenopausal women's changing experiences. Knowledge of which symptoms are inevitable conditions of hormonal shifts and which are not will remove the burden of ignorance from women and empower them to better cope with this life stage.