ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
This article is part of the Research TopicGlobal Health Perspectives on Empowering Women: Ethnopharmacological Approaches to Overcoming Health Challenges During MenopauseView all 4 articles
Constrains for seeking perimenopausal healthcare services among women aged 40 to 60 years in Guangzhou, China:a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1The Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
- 2The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
- 3The Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, Foshan, China
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In China, the vast majority of perimenopausal healthcare (PMH) services are performed in a diversity of outpatient clinics, such that women may encounter more obstacles towards acquiring appropriate management of perimenopause, resulting in misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis and subsequent repeated visits. Establishing a specialty clinic for perimenopausal women is a new concept. This study aimed to assess PMH services utilization among women aged 40-60 years, and identify factors influencing it's uptake in Guangzhou, China. A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to October 2024 including 1136 women from Tianhe District, Guangzhou. Barriers and facilitators for PMH services utilization were analyzed based on Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services Use. The magnitude of PMH services utilization was 31.0% among women aged 40 to 60 year in Guangzhou, China. Factors associated with services utilization included immigrant women (OR=3.158, 95%CI:2.014~3.957), not living closer to the PMH clinic (OR=2.841, 95%CI:1.784 ~3.259), women with limited decision-making autonomy regarding PMH services utilization (OR=0.361, 95%CI:0.128~0.813), having a feeling of stigma towards perimenopausal health problems (OR=0.284, 95%CI:0.079~0.560), poor social support (OR=3.015, 95%CI: 1.809~3.217) and moderate/severe menopausal symptoms (OR=2.045, 95%CI:1.610~2.967 and OR=1.836, 95%CI:0.739 ~2.318, respectively). The utilization of PMH services among women aged 40 to 60 years remained suboptimal. Efforts should be made to raise public concerns about perimenopause. Improving services access is critical for increasing the utilization of PMH services.
Keywords: Perimenopause, healthcare, utilization, China, Menopausal symptom
Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Liu and Xiong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ribo Xiong, xiongribo@outlook.com
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