title: Menopausal transition symptoms in midlife women living with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
abstract: We aimed to determine how menopausal transition symptoms cluster across 216 midlife women with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndromes (FMS/CFS), or both and subsequently to compare symptom factor severity scores by menopausal status among these women and compare symptom reporting with prior community-based samples of women without obvious illness. We designed a cross-sectional telephone survey of 216 women aged 35 to 55, diagnosed with FMS/CFS, symptomatic in the prior 6 months, and without hysterectomy. Thirty-six of 61 symptoms loaded on five factors: aroused/anxious mood, depressed mood/withdrawal, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal (GI), and vasomotor. Peri- and postmenopausal women had higher symptom severity scores for musculoskeletal, GI, and vasomotor factors but not mood factors. Symptoms for the women we studied who had FMS/CFS clustered similar to those in previous community-based samples of midlife women without major illness; however, the number of women experiencing symptoms was much higher among our sample.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago, 60612, USA. jwilbur@uic..edu
authors.forename: Joellen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wilbur
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shaver
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kogan
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Buntin
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D015673:Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005356:Fibromyalgia / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008593:Menopause; D008875:Middle Aged; D017697:Premenopause; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D016387:Women's Health