title: Severity and clustering of menopausal symptoms among obese and nonobese postmenopausal women in India.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The symptoms of menopause have a negative impact on quality of life, especially in women transitioning to menopause and earlier transitions. This study was conducted with the objective of assessing the effect of obesity on the severity of menopausal symptoms and the clustering of symptoms in postmenopausal women in India.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Menopausal Rating Scale (MRS) was used to assess the severity of menopausal symptoms of postmenopausal women of Chennai, visiting Saveetha Medical College, Chennai, India. This cross-sectional study was conducted from August to November 2013 in Chennai, India. Sociodemographic characteristics, anthropometric measurements, blood pressure level, menopausal history, personal health history, and hormonal disorder issues were investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results have shown that 24% of the participants had complaint of mild to severe hot flushes, half of them had reported heart ailments (49%; n = 74), and disturbed sleep (48%; n = 72). The proportion of overweight/obese participants was higher in married (64%) than widows (41%), and this difference was found statistically significant (P = 0.005). There were no significant differences in MRS scores of obese and nonobese postmenopausal participants.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a need of developing interactive, user friendly, technology based education module for addressing the chronic ailments of postmenopausal women.
authors.affiliation: Saveetha Young Medical Researchers Group, Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India; Operations Research in Population Health, Foundation of Healthcare Technologies Society, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: E S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Sharanya Shre
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, College of Public Health, UNMC, Omaha, USA.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Trout
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Population Service International, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Sonia Pant
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Foundation of Healthcare Technologies Society, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Awnish Kumar
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Foundation of Healthcare Technologies Society, New Delhi, India; Department of Biochemistry, Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
authors.forename: Surapaneni Krishna
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Mohan
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Foundation of Healthcare Technologies Society, New Delhi, India; Department of Public Health, CUNY School of Public Health, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Ashish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Joshi
keywords: Clustering; menopause; obese women; postmenopause; symptoms