An empowerment model of Iranian women for the management of menopause: a grounded theory study

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: There is still no clear portrayal of women's empowerment in managing menopause. The present study was conducted to design a model for the empowerment of Iranian women in managing menopause.

Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using the grounded theory on  40-60-year-old women who were first selected through purposive sampling and then by theoretical sampling from November 2013 to July 2016. Data were collected using 33 in-depth, semi-structured, individual interviews with 30 participants. Data were analyzed using the Strauss and Corbin(2008) approach and organized in MAXQDA-10.

Results: The analysis of the data led to the emergence of "active coping with menopause" as the core variable with four themes. The two themes "threat to feminine identity" and "latent opportunity" explained the context of the study, and "redefining the feminine identity" and "self-retrieval" explained its process.

Conclusion: In our social context, the phenomenon of menopause is a coin with two sides and its experience leans more on the threat to feminine identity and less on latent opportunity. The model of postmenopausal women’s empowerment for managing menopause might offer health policy-makers a realistic and divergent understanding of the challenges of empowering women by explaining key concepts.

KEYWORDS:

• Empowerment
• Menopause
• gender Identities
• health promotion
• grounded theory

Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by Tehran university of Medical Science & health services grant. We would like to thank the reviewers’ comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services [2139].

Notes on contributors

Mansoureh Yazdkhasti

Mansoureh Yazdkhasti, Ph.D., MY, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Midwifery, School of Medicine, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran; [email protected].

Reza Negarandeh

Reza Negarandeh, Ph.D., RN, is a professor in the Department of Community Health and Geriatric Nursing in the School of Nursing and Midwifery and the head of the Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center, both at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Negarandeh can be reached at [email protected].

Zahra Behboodi Moghadam

Zahra Behboodi Moghadam, ZBM is an associate professor in the Department of Reproductive Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; [email protected].