Los trastornos de ansiedad durante la transición a la menopausia

Abstract

Menopause is the cessation of menses as a result of loss of ovarian follicular activity. The period before menopause and the first year after menopause is known as peri-menopause. Post-menopause is defined as the years after menopause, regardless of whether it was induced or spontaneous. Due to increased life expectancy in Mexican women, as many reach the average age of menopause at 45-59 years, they spend a significant part of their lives in post-menopause. It has been observed that psychiatric disorders are more common in women than in men, and that peri-menopause is a stage when the risk of psychological symptoms increases, as well as the risk of major depression and anxiety disorders. It must be determined when anxiety arises as a normal state in response to specific daily stress provoking situations, or whether anxiety starts to present itself irrationally as part of a psychiatric disorder. In this review we present data on anxiety during menopausal transition. Reference is also made to general anxiety disorder and panic disorder, due to their high prevalence in women during menopausal transition, probably attributed to hormonal changes during this stage.