The Effectiveness of Lifestyle Educational Program in Health Promoting Behaviors and Menopausal Symptoms in 45-60-Year-Old Women in Marvdasht, Iran.

INTRODUCTION Health and lifestyle of women are of great importance in some periods of life, such as menopause. Since postmenopausal women are considered as a vulnerable group of the society, finding a strategy to improve their health seems necessary. METHODS This experimental study with pretest-posttest design was carried out on 200 postmenopausal women between 45 and 60 years old in Ramjerd, Marvdasht, Iran, in 2014. The women who met the inclusion criteria of the study were selected by simple random sampling. The data were collected using demographic information questionnaire, Menopause Rating Scale (MRS), and Walker's Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLPII). The data were entered into the SPSS statistical software (version 19) and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired t-test, independent t-test, and chi-square test. P-values less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. RESULTS The results of paired t-test showed a significant difference in the mean scores of health promoting lifestyle and MRS in the experimental group (P<.05), but not in the control group (P>.05). CONCLUSION Lifestyle education was effective in health promoting behaviors and menopausal symptoms. After the educational intervention, health promoting behaviors increased and menopausal symptoms decreased in the postmenopausal women. Therefore, educational interventions based on health promoting lifestyles can be used as an appropriate strategy to reduce postmenopausal women's menopausal symptoms and improve their health.