Premature menopause: Exploring the experience through online communication

Abstract

The authors explored the experience of premature menopause by analyzing 1350 posted messages by 98 women, with unique usernames, to an online discussion board over a 90 day period between December 2005 and March 2006. Four particularly problematic aspects emerged that related to the following themes: legitimizing the symptoms, the impact of diagnosis ("losing me"), treatment ("regaining me"), and feeling alone. It appeared that premature menopause, regardless of the cause, was a largely negative experience, compounded by the often lengthy process of confirming a diagnosis based on ambiguous and often vague symptoms, the scarcity of suitable information about the condition, and the subjective lack of perceived support that the women received. Furthermore, a feeling of being different, through the lack of menstruation and fertility choices, often led to relationship problems and generally a loss of well-being. Women with premature menopause would benefit from the development of tailored information and support that addresses these problematic aspects of the condition.

‘It's not supposed to be this way’: Psychological aspects of a premature menopause

“…Diagnosis delivery nearly always had a significant adverse impact on psychological adaptation; respondents compared it to bereavement in line with previous studies (Halliday & Boughton, ; Singer & Hunter, ). They found it hard to identify one single area of greatest concern – they had so many – but the main areas referred to were: infertility, long‐term use of medication, fatigue, a more negative outlook on life, loss of self‐confidence including an impaired sense of femininity and fears of premature aging.…”

“…However, some standardised measures were used as a counterbalance. Face-to-face, semistructured interviews were considered, but due to the similarity of open-ended, written responses to earlier interview studies (Halliday & Boughton, 2009;Singer & Hunter 1999) and time constraints, this was not undertaken.…”

Female Fertility: A Conceptual and Dimensional Analysis

“…Female fertility has been commonly defined in biological terms including: the quality of being fertile, the ability to reproduce or become pregnant, reproductive capacity, motherhood potential, and potential for procreation . Overall, these definitions involve positive notions; however, fertility is an enigma to those who contemplate desired versus undesired fertility and ability to conceive versus inability to conceive .…”

“…Female perspectives of menopause include loss of fertility and living with menopause symptoms. Posts from an online discussion board of 98 women experiencing premature menopause revealed feelings of loss, sadness, guilt, hopelessness, and loss of well‐being . The women felt a sense of urgency to conceive before time runs out .…”

“…Power as it relates to fertility is often referred to in the biological sense as the ability to conceive a child . It also can be the power over fertility or the suppression of fertility .…”