Quality of life and associated factors among naturally postmenopausal women in Arar Saudi Arabia

This study aimed to assess menopause-specific quality of life among naturally postmenopausal women in Arar City, Saudi Arabia, and to examine its association with selected sociodemographic, reproductive, and health-related characteristics. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 377 naturally postmenopausal women aged 40 years or older recruited from primary health care centers in Arar City. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire that captured sociodemographic and health-related characteristics together with the 29-item Menopause-Specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire. Descriptive statistics summarized the data, and chi-square or Fisher's exact tests examined associations between categorized quality-of-life outcomes and participant characteristics. To complement the categorical analyses, MENQOL domain scores were also examined as continuous variables in a sensitivity analysis using independent-samples t-tests and one-way analysis of variance. Most participants were aged 46-65 years (85.1%), married (75.1%), and had secondary or university education (84.4%). Sexual symptoms were the most affected domain (81.5%), followed by physical (74.0%), psychological (72.7%), and vasomotor symptoms (71.9%). Poorer overall quality of life was significantly associated with marital status, parity, occupation, household income, body mass index, age at menarche, age at natural menopause, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and negative perceptions of life after menopause (all p < 0.05). Detailed frequencies and test statistics are presented in Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Naturally postmenopausal women in this Saudi sample experienced a substantial menopausal symptom burden, particularly in the sexual, physical, and psychological domains. Several social and health-related factors were associated with poorer quality of life, supporting the need for culturally responsive nursing assessment, lifestyle counselling, and psychosocial support to enhance menopausal care and well-being.