The effectiveness of marital communication skills training using multimedia on menopausal symptoms, quality of life, and marital satisfaction in women during menopause transition: A randomized clinical trial

Objective(s): Menopause exposes women to extensive changes and negatively affects women's daily activities, quality of life, and marital satisfaction.Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of couple communication skills training using multimedia on the severity of menopausal symptoms, quality of life, and marital satisfaction in menopausal transition women.Methods: This was a randomized clinical trial with a control group conducted on 94 women aged 40 to 55 and their spouses.The participants were randomly divided into two intervention and control groups.Educational programs were implemented through multimedia in six sections (each section 20-30 minutes) for two weeks and the participants in the intervention group received it via WhatsApp.Questionnaires of the severity of menopause symptoms (including physical, urogenital, and psychological domains), quality of life (including vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, and sexual dimensions), and marital satisfaction before the intervention, immediately after and 12 weeks after the completion of the multimedia intervention were completed by the participants in both the intervention and control groups.Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 software and the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) test.A significance level of less than 0.05 was considered.Results: The findings indicated no statistically significant distinction between the intervention and control groups regarding physical, urinary-genital, and psychological dimensions, as well as the overall score of menopausal symptoms at various measurement points.Similarly, the two groups had no notable difference regarding vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, dna sexual dimensions, and overall quality of life scores at different measurement times.However, a significant difference was observed in the marital satisfaction score between the groups.Specifically, the control group showed a decreasing trend in marital satisfaction scores over time with a slope of 0.91.In contrast, the intervention group exhibited an increasing trend with a slope of 3.99 (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Marital satisfaction is crucial in couples' relationships, but menopause can impair it.According to the study findings using social media interventions can improve couples' communication.