Effects of counseling on lifestyle of menopause women and their spouses: a randomized, controlled trial study (RCT)

Abstract

Background: Menopause is a part of the normal aging process, but considerably affect the different aspects of women and their spouse lifestyle. Stabilizing a healthy lifestyle is important way to control predisposing factors of disease conditions in menopause women, thus counseling may have a major role for improving lifestyle in women and their spouse. Objective: The present study aimed to assess the influence of counseling on lifestyle of menopause women and their spouses. Methods: An interventional trials study was performed on 120 consecutive Iranian couples (menopause women and their spouses) who were resident in Hamadan. The subjects were randomly assigned to receive counseling service as intervention group or did not receive this service as control group. The lifestyle assessment was performed before counseling, and also after the first session (2 months later) and second session (2 months after the first session) of counseling. The control group did not receive any counseling. In total, five sessions were programmed for one hour as couple Counseling at home. Results: The scores of nutritional habits and physical activity level at baseline were significantly similar between the two groups. However, both nutritional habit and physical activity scores were significantly increased after regular counseling in the intervention group, while these scores remained unchanged in the control group. Conclusion: Counseling has beneficial effects on lifestyle modification in both menopause women and their spouses regarding improvement of nutritional habits and physical activity.