Prevalence of menopausal symptoms among mid-life women: findings from electronic medical records

BACKGROUND To assess the prevalence of menopausal symptoms among women prescribed hormone therapy (HT) using electronic medical record data from a regional healthcare organization. METHODS Retrospective data from the Reliant Medical Group from 1/1/2006-12/31/2011 were assessed for 102 randomly-selected patients. Study eligibility criteria included: females aged 45 to 65; prescribed oral or transdermal HT; no history of breast cancer, venous thromboembolism, stroke, gynecological cancer, or hysterectomy; continuously enrolled in the health plan for 1 year before and after the first observed HT prescription. Prevalence of menopause-related symptoms was analyzed descriptively at both the patient and visit levels. RESULTS Mean age of patients was 54 years. The most common menopausal symptoms were: hot flushes (40%), night sweats (17%), insomnia (16%), vaginal dryness (13%), mood disorders (12%), and weight gain (12%). Among the 102 patients, 163 individual visits listing menopausal symptoms were identified, of which hot flushes (71 visits) were the most common symptom identified. CONCLUSION Our findings provide recent data on the types of menopausal symptoms experienced by mid-life women prescribed HT. Electronic medical records may be a rich source of data for future studies of menopausal symptoms in this population.