TY - JOUR

T1 - Psychological and social health outcomes of physical activity around menopause: A scoping review of research

AU - Hybholt, Maria

N1 - Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Objective: To chart peer-reviewed literature regarding the psychological and social health outcomes of physical activity (PA) around menopause in a systematic manner.Methods: Nine electronic databases and 10 core journals were searched using specific search strings to identify eligible articles. Manual checking of reference lists was also performed. The selection process was guided by the stages in PRISMA-ScR.Results: Eighty peer-reviewed articles representing 67 studies from 25 countries were included. All articles were published between 1994 and 2021. For all studies, surveys were the primary method of measuring psychological and social health outcomes, in cross-sectional studies (36 papers), intervention studies (33), longitudinal cohort studies (10) and one paper reporting a mixed-method study. The dataset comprised a total of 103,826 women, with an average age of 52.6 and a variety of menopausal states. Most of the studies involved primarily Caucasian, relatively healthy, married and employed participants. Nineteen psychological and social health outcomes were assessed, including psychological menopause symptoms (N = 34), quality of life (N = 33), depression (N = 30), anxiety (N = 11), mental wellbeing (N = 21), perceived stress (N = 9), satisfaction with life (N = 7) and self-esteem (N = 5).Conclusions: Collectively, the findings of these studies indicate a relatively evident positive impact of PA on the respective health outcomes, with only a few studies reporting no association. It is also noteworthy that most studies did not report any difference related to menopausal status. Future studies would benefit from, inter alia, a qualitative approach to lived experiences of psychological and social health outcomes of PA during the menopausal transition.

AB - Objective: To chart peer-reviewed literature regarding the psychological and social health outcomes of physical activity (PA) around menopause in a systematic manner.Methods: Nine electronic databases and 10 core journals were searched using specific search strings to identify eligible articles. Manual checking of reference lists was also performed. The selection process was guided by the stages in PRISMA-ScR.Results: Eighty peer-reviewed articles representing 67 studies from 25 countries were included. All articles were published between 1994 and 2021. For all studies, surveys were the primary method of measuring psychological and social health outcomes, in cross-sectional studies (36 papers), intervention studies (33), longitudinal cohort studies (10) and one paper reporting a mixed-method study. The dataset comprised a total of 103,826 women, with an average age of 52.6 and a variety of menopausal states. Most of the studies involved primarily Caucasian, relatively healthy, married and employed participants. Nineteen psychological and social health outcomes were assessed, including psychological menopause symptoms (N = 34), quality of life (N = 33), depression (N = 30), anxiety (N = 11), mental wellbeing (N = 21), perceived stress (N = 9), satisfaction with life (N = 7) and self-esteem (N = 5).Conclusions: Collectively, the findings of these studies indicate a relatively evident positive impact of PA on the respective health outcomes, with only a few studies reporting no association. It is also noteworthy that most studies did not report any difference related to menopausal status. Future studies would benefit from, inter alia, a qualitative approach to lived experiences of psychological and social health outcomes of PA during the menopausal transition.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - Climacteric

KW - Exercise

KW - Training

KW - Quality of life

KW - Menopausal symptoms

KW - Depression

KW - Mental wellbeing

U2 - 10.1016/j.maturitas.2022.07.014

DO - 10.1016/j.maturitas.2022.07.014

M3 - Review

C2 - 35964395

VL - 164

SP - 88

EP - 97

JO - Maturitas

JF - Maturitas

SN - 0378-5122

ER -