ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Reprod. Health
Sec. Menopause
This article is part of the Research TopicExercise and Menopause: Benefits, Challenges and the Transition to Optimal ManagementView all 7 articles
Quality of Life Among Tunisian Women Across Different Menopausal Stages
Provisionally accepted
- Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education of Ksar Saïd, University of Manouba, Tunis, Tunisia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study aimed to assess the prevalence of menopausal symptoms and to examine how anthropometric measurements, sociodemographic factors, and lifestyle variables such as physical activity level ,independently influence the quality of life (QoL) of Tunisian women during mid-life. This cross-sectional study included 375 women from different regions of Tunisia, classified according to the World Health Organization's definition of menopausal stages. Data were collected using the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL) and the Physical Activity Self-Assessment Questionnaire (J. Ricci & L. Gagnon). Anthropometric measurements were performed by the research team. The Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to compare MENQOL scores across groups. Premenopause Results: The most reported symptom was feeling tired or worn out (76%). The psychosocial domain had the greatest QoL impact (score: 2.05), followed by the physical (2.03), sexual (1.64), and vasomotor (1.36) domains. Perimenopause: Feeling tired or worn out was reported by 81% of participants. The physical domain had the highest impact (2.03), followed by psychosocial (1.87), vasomotor (1.77), and sexual (1.28) domains. Postmenopause: Flatulence or gas-related colic was reported by 86% of women. The psychosocial domain had the highest impact (2.36), followed by physical, vasomotor, and sexual domains. Overall, 68% of participants had a moderate level of physical activity. Higher physical activity was associated with better QoL in the total sample but remained significant only among premenopausal women. Overweight (42%) and obesity (28%) were prevalent, and higher BMI was consistently associated with poorer QoL, particularly in the premenopause stage. This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article Physical and psychosocial symptoms were the most prevalent across stages. Higher physical activity and lower BMI were linked to better QoL in premenopausal women; however, these associations weakened during menopause, with income and BMI showing potential influence in postmenopause.
Keywords: Premenopause, Menopausal stage or perimenopause, Postmenopause, Quality of Life, MENQOL, physical activity, BMI
Received: 16 Aug 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sneni, Snani and Fairouz. 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: Haifa Snani, haifa.sn.m1@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.