Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and female climacteric: a narrative review
Arq. bras. psicol. (Rio J. 2022); 74 (), 2022
Publication year: 2022
Climacteric is the period in a woman’s life cycle that involves
perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause. It represents the
end of the reproductive period and the beginning of female aging in
the biological sense. Over the past 10 years, an emphasis has been
placed on the study of mental health in the female climacteric. Studies
about the prevalence of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and
association with different factors have shown important results on the
relevance of these disorders during female climacteric. Considering
the importance of these findings in the field of public health and
epidemiology, we conducted a narrative review aiming to discuss the
current knowledge about the prevalence of depression, anxiety and
suicidal ideation in the female climacteric, analyzing methods and
results in different studies, selected from a literature review between
2009 and 2019, in the PubMed, Lilacs, Embase, Web of Science and
Google Scholar databases. Our results showed that the methodology,
cultural and sociodemographic differences, as well as a variety of
biopsychosocial factors studied, generate some uncertainties about
the exact relationship between depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation
and female climacteric. We conclude that more research, greater
methodological rigor, more accurate results and a biopsychosocial
view are needed and urgent for effective interventions, cost reduction
in mental health care, as well as prevention and control of depression,
anxiety and suicide in climacteric.