Abstract:
Background: Menopause causes structural and functional impairments in postmenopausal
women (PMW) such as anthropometric adiposity measures (AAMs) and physical
performances (PPs).
Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a health promoting life-style
modification education intervention (HPLEI) on AAMs and PPs in a group of PMW.
Methodology: A quasi-experimental study was conducted with randomly selected,
sociodemographic status matched, 72 PMW from two geographically separated areas in
Galle, Sri Lanka allocated as experimental (n=37) and control (n=35) groups. HPLEI
focused on postmenopausal lifestyle management was performed during 8 weeks and
printed health education package was provided only for the experimental group. Both groups
were followed-up for 6 months period after the HPLEI. AAMs and PPs were measured
before the intervention and after 6 months follow-up in both experimental and control
groups. Measured AAMs were body mass index (BMI, kg/m2
), waist circumference (WC,
cm) and waist to hip ratio (WHR). Evaluated PPs were hand grip strength (HGS, kg) and
gait speed (GS, m/s).
Results and conclusions: Mean (SD) age of experimental and control groups were 54.6
(4.5) and 56.5 (3.4) (p=0.06) years respectively and sociodemographic factors were not
different between groups. Before the intervention, AAMs and PPs were not significantly
different between experimental and control groups (p>0.05). In the follow-up evaluation,
BMI, WHR and WC were significantly (p<0.05) reduced and all the measured PPs were
significantly improved (p<0.001) in experimental group. However, AAMs showed
significant or non-significant increments while PPs showed significant impairments
(p<0.001) in control group in the same evaluation. In the follow-up evaluation, AAMs and
PPs were improved positively in experimental group compared to control group (p<0.05).
HPLEI provided after menopause was effective in improving AAMs and PPs in PMW. The
usefulness of such interventions needs to be confirmed in a larger study.
