Cultural construction of the menopausal syndrome: the Japanese case.

Europe and North America have been the focus of most research on the menopause and its symptoms. In this study, in the course of in-depth interviews Japanese physicians and women were asked to describe the menopausal experience. A cross-sectional survey concerning women and their health at midlife was then distributed to 1738 women. The analysis in this paper is based on the replies received from 1141 non-hysterectomized women aged 45-55. Factor analysis was used to group the symptoms these women had experienced in the previous 2 wk. After constructing an index based on the factor scores, one-way analysis of variance was used to examine the relationship between symptom experience and the epidemiological menopausal status as well as the self-defined menopausal status. Symptom experience was always significantly related to self-defined menopausal status.