Surgical menopause increases risk of insomnia, says study

Washington DC: According to a latest study, surgical menopause leads to increased sleep issues in women as opposed to natural menopause.

Results of the findings are published in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

Surgical menopause is often accompanied by more psychological and physical difficulties. The increased severity of menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats can disrupt sleep during a time in a woman's life when sleep problems are already an issue; however, only a few quantitative studies have investigated sleep-interfering behaviour in postmenopausal women.

This new study is one of the first to compare sleep-interfering behaviours based on the type of menopause, surgical and natural.

More than 500 post-menopausal women completed questionnaires as part of the study. Women in the surgical menopause group reported significantly worse sleep quality, especially for sleep duration and habitual sleep efficiency, compared with women in the natural menopause group.

In addition, women who underwent surgical menopause were found to be more than twice as likely to have insomnia. Furthermore, those women in the surgical menopause group who displayed more sleep-interfering behaviours had a higher severity of insomnia symptoms.

"Early surgical menopause is known to be associated with more severe menopause symptoms," says Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton. "That's why it is important to assess sleep quality in women after surgery that leads to menopause because insomnia and disrupted sleep can cause fatigue, mood changes, and lower quality of life."