Korean Urban Woman's Experience of Menopause : Newlife

중년기 여성의 폐경경험

What is the meaning of menopause experienced by urban Korean women? Nurses need an under standing of menopause as it is experienced by women themselves. Nursing needs to build knowledge of womens' health experiences. This phenomenological study examined what menopause means to modern Korean woman to build a structure of knowledge useful for practice to enhance the quality of life of women throughout this experience. Traditional definition of menopause according to physiological changes, as illness and more recently as psychosociocultural phenomena were examined along with the folk lore information generally available in the society A review of the research and scientific literature was done from the perspectives of four models including the medical model of menopause as disease, the psychosocial model as positive and negative behavioral responses to menopause, a feminist model of menopause as a time of rebirth and a nursing model of the changing patterns of meaning, rythms and transformation women experience through menopause. Van Kaam's method was used to analyse data audio-recorded during interviews by the investigator with 65 women, 40 to 60 years of agey whose confidentility was assured. Interpretation of the data was enhanced luther by consultation with professional colleugues and with informants. Four rhythmical patterns of process emerged : from suffering to comfort, from oppression to freedom from being a good wife and wise mother to becoming a woman and from a hard life to an abundant life. The detailed common elements making up each of the four patterns and definitions of each pattern were presented. Each pattern was discussed critically from the point of view of medical, psychosociocultural, womens' and nursing models. The structural definition of the synthesis of the four process patterns was stated as : in spite of suffering the middle-aged urban Korean woman find she is able to help herself to feel comfortable and to realize release as she moves from oppression to liberation and freedom from being a good wife and wise mother she experiences rebirth as a woman : she begins to live a profitable and valuable life : her life becomes one of transformed abundant living. The definition transcends the medical and phychosociocultural model to embody a nursing model. The analysis was critiqued by using Parse' Human Becomming theory of nursing because the emerging themes were process patterns. Parse' theory provides and explanation of the experience of menopause consistant with the data which enhances nursing understanding of womens' experience of menopause. Parse' practice methodology provide guidance for promoting womens' quality of life throughout the experience of menopause. Feminist analysis contributes valuable critique to nursing research, richly expanding the perspective from traditional approaches to promote understanding of the meaning of womens' health experiences.