Spanish post-menopausal women's viewpoints on hormone therapy

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify women's socio-demographic and climacteric factors, as well as other variables related to health care, associated with the prescription of the treatment during menopause and to investigate the prevalence of certain conditioning factors in early discontinuation in women aged 40-65 years in a population of post-menopausal women in Spain. Study design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Four of the most inhabited cities in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia). Population: A total of 270 symptomatic post-menopausal women. Methods: A personal interview with a semi-structured questionnaire specifically designed to collect information on treatments for climacteric-related complaints. Main outcome measures: The reasons for HRT, the evaluation of alternative therapies, the reasons for choosing one therapy or another and reasons for discontinuation. Results: Of all the subjects included, 180 were still taking any type of treatment and 90 were former HRT users or had never used HRT. Among the latter, 43% of women expressed fear of the side effects and 38% gave the risk of breast cancer as the main reason for not using HRT. Of them, 58% receive phytoestrogens. Media and negative data from medical journals influenced this attitude in 67% of the women. On the other hand, only 9.4% of HRT users were reluctant to receive the therapy and the main reasons for maintaining HRT were its efficacy against climacteric symptoms, medical prescription and life quality. Conclusions: Side effects and fear of cancer were the most common reasons for not using HRT; and medical prescription, symptomatic improvement and quality of life were the main reasons for using it. Negative data from journals have an important effect on women's attitudes to HRT. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.