Calidad de vida en la menopausia, un reto en la práctica clínica

Introduction: Menopause is an important stage in a women's life, therefore it requires a comprehensive study in daily clinical practice. Measuring the quality of life of menopausal women represents a challenge, that´s why the tools available in order to perform this comprehensive evaluation are indispensable in the medical evaluation; they allow us to correctly consider the patient´s point of view regarding their state of health. Objective: Explore the existing information in the literature about the quality of life in menopause to contextualize the reader in the most common topics related with alterations during this period in the life of women; finally a review of current data that focus on hormonal therapy as a possible treatment for a variety of symptoms that occur in this period. Methods: A search of the literature of original research articles in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Lilacs and ScienceDirect was conducted between July 2014 and March 2015, using combinations of keywords and MeSH terms related to menopause,, quality of life, comprehensive health care, women's health. For this review, we restricted the languages to Spanish and English. Conclusion: The instruments for assessing quality of life are an indispensable complement to the comprehensive clinical evaluation of these women, being that they correctly consider the patient's view of their state of health.