Social functioning as a significant factor in women's help-seeking behaviour during the climacteric period.

In order to identify the psychosocial factors that lead to the demand for medical care related to the menopause, we carried out a case/control study. A case was defined as a woman who sought gynaecological care due to "menopausal complaints" (n = 85) and a control referred to a woman drawn at random from the general population. The cases showed greater psychiatric morbidity and social dissatisfaction, a lower level of diffused social support and a higher frequency of severe life events and the controls showed greater social maladjustment in objective conditions. The multivariate analysis (logistic regression) carried out after adjusting all the relevant variables, indicated that the demand for medical care due to menopausal complaints was not only determined by the menopausal status itself but also by a set of social and demographic variables, especially dissatisfaction and a lack of social support.