ABSTRACT

Women’s experience of menopause and midlife is explored within a biopsychosocial and cultural perspective, with emphasis on the psychosocial factors that are often ignored. These include social meanings of menopause, attribution of symptoms to menopause, and appraisal of bodily changes, as well as social contexts and material circumstances. Psychosocial support and both lifestyle and psychosocial interventions are presented with emphasis on those that are evidence-based. Women tend to find menopause more difficult to deal with in the workplace; therefore, interventions at an organizational, as well as an individual level, are recommended. Finally, in order to overcome overly negative and stigmatizing images of menopausal and older women, public health initiatives are needed that normalise the menopause as a process involving personal adjustments as well as physical and psychosocial changes, and, at the same time, provide helpful and effective treatments and strategies for those women who need them.