Attitudes towards hormone replacement therapy among middle-aged women and men.
OBJECTIVE
To survey the attitudes of middle-aged women and men towards HRT and associated issues. Men were included because of the possible influence of their attitudes on womens decisions to use HRT.


METHODS
Two-hundred women and 311 men, (not wife and husbands), between 45 and 55 years of age, from a general population sample, were queried about their attitudes towards menopause and HRT and on their knowledge about side effects of HRT.


RESULTS
The men had a more negative attitude towards HRT than the women. Two-thirds of the subjects, mostly women, considered menopause to be a medical issue and not a developmental stage in the life cycle. The most mentioned benefits of HRT were the prevention of osteoporosis and cardiopathy, and the disadvantages were "cancer" and "side effects". The concept of menopause as a medical entity was significantly correlated with a positive attitude towards HRT and whether the responder currently used HRT.


CONCLUSIONS
The attitudes of most women and men towards menopause and its psycho-social meaning play a vital role in the decision of whether women should start HRT. Education on HRT should be extended to include men who seem to have a more negative attitude towards HRT and are less informed about its benefits. Our results indicate that a positive attitude to HRT is associated with factual knowledge about its benefits and disadvantages, while a negative attitude is based more on emotional arguments.
Lomranz
J
J
Herczeg Institute on Aging, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Becker
D
D
Eyal
N
N
Pines
A
A
Mester
R
R
D001290:Attitude; D015914:Estrogen Replacement Therapy / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008593:Menopause; D008875:Middle Aged