Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Menopause; Women--Attitudes;
Abstract
This study explored women's attitudes toward menopause in relationship to age, education, marital status, health status, history of hysterectomy, and level of income. The 254 female subjects were reached through different clubs and organizations. The main focus of the research was on a small Iowa city. Information on the six variables was obtained through a questionnaire. The Neugarten et al. (1963) Attitude-Toward Menopause checklist was utilized to determine the subjects' attitudes toward menopause. The checklist contained 34 statements to which the subjects indicated their level of agreement by using a Likert-type scale. Directions were given in group situations with the Attitude-Toward-Menopause checklist either completed in the researcher's presence or returned by mail. The return rate was 85%. The hypotheses were tested by one-way analysis of variance. The statements showing significance at the p< .05 level or above were further tested by restricted analysis of variance to determine significance of categories within each variable. A factor analysis was done to determine the clustering of the 34 statements. The four major clusters ascertained were: (a) "negative affect", (b) "post-menopausal recovery", (c) "control of symptoms", and (d) "psychological losses". These four clusters accounted for 71% of the statements, with the remaining being ungrouped items. The age variable showed the greatest significance when comparing the attitudes toward menopause of the women in the six age categories. The younger the woman the more negative her attitudes toward menopause tended to be. The older the woman the more positive her feelings about postmenopausal recovery tended to be. After age, the factor of health was the most significant. The women who reported fair health appeared to be more negative in their attitudes toward menopause than women who reported good or excellent health. The fair health group appeared to be the most confident of a post-menopausal recovery. Following health, marital status yielded the largest number of significant statements. The attitudes of single women tended to be more negative toward menopause than the attitudes of the married, divorced, or widowed women. Widows tended to be the most confident of postmenopausal recovery. The data on the variables of education and level of income revealed little significance. There was a slight indication that women with less education and lower income held more negative attitudes toward menopause than women with more education and higher income. History of hysterectomy was not significant in relationship to women's attitudes toward menopause. Because this study utilized the Attitude-Toward-Menopause checklist developed by Neugarten et al. (1963), this author determined if there were any differences between the women's attitudes and between the clustering of the checklist statements in the two studies. Results indicated there were fewer statements of significance in the Freitag study. There was a 74% correlation between the clustering of the statements in the two studies.
Year of Submission
1978
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Home Economics
First Advisor
Marilyn Story
Second Advisor
Mary Franken
Third Advisor
Audrey L. Smith
Date Original
1978
Object Description
1 PDF file (104 leaves)
Copyright
©1978 Cheryl L. Freitag
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Freitag, Cheryl L., "Attitudes of Women Toward Menopause" (1978). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2690.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2690
Comments
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