J Korean Community Nurs.  2002 Sep;13(3):513-522.

A Study on the Relationship between Stress and Climacteric Symptoms of Midlife Men

• Han KL
• Chung YK
• Lee JO

Abstract

This study investigated stress and the extent of climacteric symptoms in mid-life men, and examined their relationship in order to better understand the stress and climacteric symptom experiences of mid-life men, and thereby attempted to offer basic materials for the development of a health improvement program that may help increase the quality of life of mid-life men. Three hundred mid-life men whose ages were between 40 and 59 and resided in the Seoul area were subjects of this study. The data were analyzed with the SAS PC program using descriptive statistics to analyze subjects' general characteristics and variables of stress and the extent of climacteric symptoms of the subjects. The relationship between stress and climacteric symptoms were examined by the Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and stress and the extent of climacteric symptoms in relation to the general characteristics were analyzed by T-test and ANOVA. The study conclusions are as follows: 1. Subjects general characteristics The average age of the subjects was 46 and 47.0% of them reported ages between 40 and 45. Of the subjects, 98% were married. In marriage satisfaction, those who were generally satisfied with their married life comprised 62.0% of the subjects. In terms of level of education, 95.7% were educated above the high school level. In occupational background, 59.7% had occupations related to technologies. As for religion, 42.7% had no religion. In number of children, 67.3% had 2 children. In residential status, 79.3% were living in their own homes. In terms of living arrangements, 87.7% of the subjects were living in the form of nuclear families. 2. Stress and the extent of climacteric symptoms The level of stress was scored as 2.94+/-0.74, and considering that the overall examination score is 27.16+/-1.32, the subjects' stress level was not viewed as particularly high. The average score of the extent of climacteric symptoms was 35.37+/-0.27. The extent of sub-domains of climacteric symptoms included skeleton symptoms (39.37+/-2.81), joint pain (39.16+/-3.66), vasomotor symptoms (35.39+/-3.01), other symptoms (36.99+/-3.02), psychological symptoms (34.68+/-3.01), urogenic symptoms (35.03+/-3.27), and cardiovascular symptoms (33.70+/-2.78). 3. General characteristics in relation to the stress level The subjects' general characteristics that were significantly related to the level of stress were marriage status (F=4.38, p=.001), marriage satisfaction (F=4.56, p=.001), educational background (F=2.68, p=.012), and age (F=2.48, p=.033). 4. General characteristics in relation to the level of climacteric symptoms The subjects' general characteristics that were significantly related to the level of climacteric symptoms were educational background (F=3.26, p=.007), age (F=2.58, p=.027), marriage status (F=2.62, p=.025), and marriage satisfaction (F=2.78. p=.032). 5. The correlation between stress and climacteric symptoms The subjects' level of stress and climacteric symptoms were significantly related to each other (r=0.578, p=0.000). The subjects' level of stress was correlated with sub-domains of the climacteric symptoms including psychological symptoms (r=0.579, p=0.000), joint pain (r=0.479, p=0.000), skeleton symptoms (r=0.477, p=0.000), other symptoms (r=0.467, p=0.000), vasomotor symptoms (r=0.4615, p=0.000), cardiovascular symptoms (r=0.458, p=0.000), urogenic symptoms (r=0.401, p=0.000). In summary, the climacteric symptoms suffered by mid-life men are positively correlated with their level of stress. In addition, the climacteric symptoms were affected by the level of stress.

MeSH Terms

Arthralgia
Child
Climacteric*
Education
Humans
Male
Marriage
Nuclear Family
Occupations
Quality of Life
Residence Characteristics
Seoul
Skeleton