Journal of School of Public Health and

  Background and Aim: Women perceive menopause differently. Beside biological changes, women experience menopause based on the cultural scenarios. The qualitative research presented here is about how Iranian women perceive menopause within cultural scenarios.

  Materials and Methods : Data was collected during 4 focus group sessions and 6 individual in-depth interviews of women aged 40 years and older. Informants were selected from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The sessions were facilitated by using a semi-structured inventory focus group. Content analysis was adopted using combined free and analytical coding to reduce data, to extract meanings, to categorize domains and to obtain themes .

  Results: We categorized our findings into four main domains: gender role, the changes in socialization, social interactions and supporting resources. Descriptions of the later domain are going to be reported in subsequent manuscript.

  Conclusion: The women's understandings of menopause are shaped based on the specific cultural scenarios. Menopause recognized as a factor which changes women’s life line. Meanings as 'Loosing femininity' and 'changes in women's roles in the community' describe women's gender role, social interactions and changes in the socialization throughout the menopause years. The women’s misconceptions, accumulated myths, and ignorance about femininity were evidenced based on narratives. The majority of women raised ‘role change’ as an important determinant in social interactions. Gender role changes as well as women's socialization patterns have forced women to accept loosing femininity as a reality. Developing comprehensive and culturally sensitive health services to address women's needs in the climacteric years is suggested .

  Background an d Aim : Several factors can affect the sexual function of women. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between exercise and sexual function in post-menopausal women.

  Materials and Methods : This was a community-based, descriptive-analytical study including 405 post-menopausal women 40-65 years old selected by multi-stage stratified random sampling . The data were obtained through interviews using the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and a researcher-made questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical tests such as multiple linear regression and logistic regression models .

  Results : On the whole, 61% of the subjects had sexual dysfunction. The most common type of exercise was “walking” (79.8%). For the women who exercised, the mean score in the domain of pain was significantly lower (worse) (p=0.013). The total FSFI, lubrication and pain domains scores were significantly lower in the women who did exercises other than walking as compared to those who did not exercise or practiced only walking. The weekly exercise frequency had positive correlations with lubrication (r=0.18, p=0.014) and orgasm (r=0.146, p=0.045) domain scores. However, multiple regression analysis to determine predictors of total score of FSFI and the domains scores did not give any statistically significant results. Finally, the logistic regression test showed that one additional exercise session per week would result in reduction of chances of sexual dysfunction by 80.2%.

  Conclusion : Based on the findings, it may be concluded that exercise can be a w ay to compensate for sexual problems and dissatisfactions caused by reduced sex and sexuality in post-menopausal women. Exercising more frequently during the week could have positive effects on the sexual function of post-menopausal women.