Age at menopause in India: A systematic review

Abstract

Background and aims: Menopause is a physiological process in nature and hence, variations in the age of menopause are not expected. Hence, the study was conducted with an objective to calculate the reliable estimates of age at menopause for India, and understand the differentials in women's age at menopause throughout the country.

Methods: A total of 202 studies of age at menopause, covering the period 2009-2020, were accessed from PubMed database and Google. Of these only ten studies met the selection criteria for this paper, which is that the data for these studies must be collected from house-to-house surveys.

Results: The average age at menopause in India, with minimal publication bias, is 46.6 years (95% CI: 44.83, 48.44). In one study slightly above 1.96 Standard Deviation, was observed, as ascertained by Funnel Plot and Egger's test. The mean age ranged from a minimum of 44.69 years (95% CI: 35.01, 54.37) to a maximum of 48.95 (95% CI: 42.29, 55.61) years. Furthermore, the age at menopause did not exhibit any significant variation by age at menarche, although the association was positive.

Conclusions: The age at menopause showed positive association with age at menarche. In India, during the period 2009-2020, it was 46.6 years, which significantly lower than the age in some developed countries. The differences may be methodological since no information was found regarding the distribution of age at menopause in the studies that were considered for meta-analysis.

Keywords: Age at menopause; Meta-analysis; Systematic review.