Determination of the mean age of menopause and it's distribution terms of known variables in Kerman

  This research is a cross _ sectional and descriptive study for determining of the mean age of menopause and related factors in Kerman province. The sample included 2000 of Kerman families which chosen by clustering method, and the women of 40_60 years were studied. The women who had not become menopause physiologically were omitted. So the sample size decreased to 224(102 urban, 122 rural). The data collected by questionnaire. The mean age of menopause for the whole population was 48 and this characteristics for the physiological menopause was 48.4. the results showed that the being urban and rural, occupation, education, husband's occupation, gravids, parities, abortions and children make no significancy on mean age of menopause. Also it showed that there was no significancy between age of first gravida  and age of menopause, but if the last gravida was after 45 it could delaying the menopause significantly( p<0.01). Besides long term oral contraceptives can affected on delaying of menopause ( p<0.01). There was no significancy between smoking and menopause age.  The mean age of those women who had gynecological operation was less than the other s. Finally it's concluded that the mean age of menopause in this region is less than the international reports.