the climacterium and its relation to health and work environment - doi:10.5020/18061230.2006.p140

The climacterium consists in a period of signs and symptoms that may reflect in some way in the lives of women, both in a familiar point of view as well as in a professional one. This study had the aim of analyzing the interferences of problems experienced by a woman in climacterium and their relation to health and work environment. It was a descriptiveexploratory research with a qualitative approach and it was carried out with 26 women in the age group of 40 to 57 years old. The informers were health professionals from a public institution of Ceará State. There were applied semi-structured interviews and the data were arranged into categories: the knowledge regarding the physiological transformations of climacterium and its relation to health; the climacterium’s interference in work. The results revealed that despite the knowledge level of the participants regarding the body’s physiological changes, they, nevertheless, had difficulty in accepting this natural physiological process during this phase of life. We conclude that the symptoms presented and experienced during daily life interfere in a negative way in the accomplishment of work-related activities and also in woman’s health