title: Informing women on menopause and hormone therapy: Know The Menopause a multidisciplinary project involving local healthcare system.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hormone therapy (HT) in the menopause is still a tricky question among healthcare providers, women and mass media. Informing women about hormone replacement therapy was a Consensus Conference (CC) organized in 2008: the project Know the Menopause has been launched to shift out the results to women and healthcare providers and to assess the impact of the cc's statement.
  
  
  METHODS
  And Findings: The project, aimed at women aged 45-60 years, was developed in four Italian Regions: Lombardy, Tuscany, Lazio, Sicily, each with one Local Health Unit (LHU) as "intervention" and one as "control". Activities performed were: survey on the press; training courses for health professionals; educational materials for target populations; survey aimed at women, general practitioners (GPs), and gynaecologists; data analysis on HT drugs' prescription. Local activities were: training courses; public meetings; dissemination on mass media. About 3,700 health professionals were contacted and 1,800 participated in the project. About 146,500 printed leaflets on menopause were distributed to facilitate the dialogue among women and health care professionals. Training courses and educational cascade-process activities: participation ranged 25- 72% of GPs, 17-71% of gynaecologists, 14-78% of pharmacists, 34-85% of midwives.
  
  
  METHODS
  1,281 women interviewed. More than 90% believed menopause was a normal phase in life. More than half did not receive information about menopause and therapies. HT prescription analysis: prevalence fell from 6% to 4% in five years. No differences in time trends before-after the intervention. Major limitations are: organizational difficulties met by LHU, too short time for some local activities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A huge amount of information was spread through health professionals and women. The issue of menopause was also used to discuss women's wellbeing. This project offered an opportunity to launch a multidisciplinary, multimodal approach to menopause looking not only at pharmacological aspects, but also at quality of life and information.
authors.affiliation: Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italia.
authors.forename: Serena
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Donati
authors.affiliation: Agenzia Editoria Scientifica Zadig, Milano, Italia.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Satolli
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for medical research and consumers involvement, IRCCS, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milano, Italia.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Colombo
authors.affiliation: Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italia.
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Senatore
authors.affiliation: Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italia.
authors.forename: Rodolfo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cotichini
authors.affiliation: Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italia.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Da Cas
authors.affiliation: Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italia.
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Spila Alegiani
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for medical research and consumers involvement, IRCCS, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milano, Italia.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mosconi
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006306:Health Surveys; D020249:Hormone Replacement Therapy / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D007558:Italy; D008593:Menopause / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'