Knowledge, attitude and practices towards management of postmenopausal symptoms in primary health care among family medicine residents in makkah city, 2021: a cross-sectional study

Background: Menopausal women are an increasing population that needs more attention and care. Providing counseling and management of menopausal symptoms effectively are one of the roles of primary healthcare (PHC) doctors. Thus, they need to be up to date in menopause management. Objectives: To explore the knowledge, attitude, and practices of family medicine residents towards the management of postmenopausal symptoms. Subjects and methods: Analytic cross-sectional study was performed among all family medicine residents registered at the joint program of family medicine in Makkah Al-Mukarramah city, 2021. A self- administered online questionnaire including questions about sociodemographic data, knowledge, attitude and practice of menopausal management among the participants was applied for data collection. Results: The study included 118 Family Medicine resident physicians. Majority (94.9%) aged <30 years and females represented 51.7% of them. History of ever attending courses or workshops about menopause and its management was mentioned by 18.6% of the respondents. Overall, sufficient knowledge was reported among 44.9% of them. Attending training courses was borderline insignificantly associated with knowledge level, p=0.050. Majority of the physicians (97.5%) expressed positive attitude towards menopause and its management, however, only 33.1% had good practice, with no difference between the participants according to sociodemographic characteristics and history of attending training courses. The most frequently reported barriers facing family medicine resident physicians in managing menopausal symptoms were lack of training in the management of menopause (58.5%), lack of knowledge about menopausal management (48.3%), unaware of existing guidelines (42.4%) , lack of skills (24.6%) and lack of effective referral system (24.6%). Conclusion: Insufficient knowledge and poor practice of menopause management were noticed among family medicine residents. However, positive attitude was expressed by majority of them towards menopause and its management.