A review of menopause nomenclature

Abstract

Menopause nomenclature varies in the scholarly literature making synthesis and interpretation of research fndings difcult. Therefore, the present study aimed to review and discuss critical developments in menopause nomenclature; determine the level of heterogeneity amongst menopause defnitions and compare them with the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop criteria. Defnitions/criteria used to characterise premenopausal and postmenopausal status were extracted from 210 studies and 128 of these studies were included in the fnal analyses. The main fndings were that 39.84% of included studies were consistent with STRAW classifcation of premenopause, whereas 70.31% were consistent with STRAW classifcation of postmenopause. Surprisingly, major inconsistencies relating to premenopause defnition were due to a total lack of reporting of any defnitions/criteria for premenopause (39.84% of studies). In contrast, only 20.31% did not report defnitions/criteria for postmenopause. The present fndings indicate that there is a signifcant amount of heterogeneity associated with the defnition of premenopause, compared with postmenopause. We propose three key suggestions/recommendations, which can be distilled from these fndings. Firstly, premenopause should be transparently operationalised and reported. Secondly, as a minimum requirement, regular menstruation should be defned as the number of menstrual cycles in a period of at least 3 months. Finally, the utility of introducing normative age-ranges as supplementary criterion for defning stages of reproductive ageing should be considered. The use of consistent terminology in research will enhance our capacity to compare results from diferent studies and more efectively investigate issues related to women’s health and ageing.