Surgical- Menopause: Aftereffect Symptoms

Abstract

Background: Hysterectomy lead to sudden drop in hormonal level result in instant surgical menopause which has an enormous effect on women’s health. The present study aimed to assess extent of physical and psychological aftereffect symptoms experienced among women undergone hysterectomy postoperatively.
Methods: A descriptive study was conducted among women who underwent elective hysterectomy from District Tertiary care hospital in Salem, Tamil Nadu, India. Data were collected in the home settings after 4 months of surgery during follow-up. Totally 279 subjects participated in the study. Tools used were demographic proforma to collect demographic variables; Checklist was used to assess occurrence (presence/absence) of physical and psychological symptoms. If symptoms present, further subjects were asked to describe its intensity in 3 point likert scale. Descriptive statistics was used in analysis.
Results: Majority of subjects experienced physical aftereffect symptoms such as lack of libido, fatigue and sleep disturbance; only few of them reported to have urinary incontinence, hot flushes, night sweats, palpitation, and dryness of skin, nocturia and weight gain. Intensity of symptoms showed lack of libido, hot flushes, night sweats and urinary incontinence was experienced in severe level; only weight gain was in mild level. In regard to psychological symptoms, most of them expressed to have mood changes, increased tension and irritability; lesser number of subjects had feeling of guilty and wanting to be alone. However, intensity was severe for feeling of guilty compare to rest of the symptoms.
Conclusion: The present study findings will help the health care professional to understand about extent of aftereffect symptoms experienced in women after hysterectomy and to plan for various treatment strategies to benefit the women.