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Menopausal Women Need Better Health Care and Community Support in Rural Areas |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Coping with menopause can pose real challenges for women in rural areas, especially if health services are inaccessible and they face other pressures like caring for elderly relatives and poverty. Good social support and reliable information are essential for women who find menopause an intense and life-altering experience, especially if they live in rural areas where health services are patchy or inaccessible. That's the key finding from research published in the latest issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. The researchers are suggesting that specially trained nurses and female community leaders could play a key role in building up local support networks and providing good quality information on menopause. "Women living in rural areas described a need to fully understand the often surprising intensity of menopause-related symptoms, including changes to their physical and mental well-being" says Sheri L Price, a nurse researcher who specialises in women's health at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. "The women we interviewed described struggling to sift through excessive and conflicting medical information from a number of Internet and media sources and said they needed to receive accurate information from sources they trusted. "These can include geographical isolation, lack of confidentiality and anonymity, stress from multiple roles (including caring for ageing relatives), poverty and limited health care and support services" she says. Women who took part in the survey drew heavily on shared experiences and humour and saw menopause as a bonding experience with other women.
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