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Psychiatric Aspects of the Menopause

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

C. B. Ballinger*
Affiliation:
Mental Health Unit, Royal Dundee Liff Hospital, Dundee DD2 5NE

Extract

In the debates about the association between mental illness and the menopause, the psychiatric approach contradicts assertions by the gynaecological and psychoanalytic literature that the menopause has a negative effect on mental health. General population studies show that, if at all, psychiatric morbidity is more common in women in the five years before menopause. Sociocultural and family factors are more important in the aetiology of mental illness in menopausal women than physiological changes. Anxiety and depression in such women do not respond to oestrogen therapy, although some cases respond to antidepressants.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990 

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