Menopausal hot flashes, night sweats associated with stress, depression
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Women who reported night sweats during menopause had high scores for both stress and depression, and those who reported hot flashes had elevated depression scores, according to data presented at the NAMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta.
“In menopause research, we typically combine hot flashes and night sweats into one and call them ‘vasomotor symptoms,’” Sofiya I. Shreyer, MA, a lab coordinator and PhD student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told Healio. “When scientists are interested in how, for example, financial stability impacts women’s experience of menopause, they will often use ‘vasomotor symptoms’ in their analysis. Because of this, we haven’t really explored much how hot flashes and night sweats may be different from one another.”
Shreyer and colleagues interviewed 200 women aged 45 to 55 years who lived in western Massachusetts about their reproductive history and their experience with hot flashes and night sweats over the past 2 weeks. Participants self-administered the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale, which assessed their depression and stress levels, respectively.
Overall, 70% of women reported hot flashes, with most women reporting that they most frequently experienced hot flashes at night (54%). Night sweats were reported by 63% of participants.
Adjusting for menopause status, financial status and marital status, night sweats were associated with depression (P < .001) and stress (P = .01), whereas hot flashes were associated with depression only (P = .007).
Of note, women who reported most hot flashes at night experienced higher levels of depression (P = .004).
“We can’t say if night sweats lead to more stress or if being more stressed leads to night sweats just yet, but this is a promising step toward having a more nuanced understanding of women’s experience with vasomotor symptoms,” Shreyer said.
Shreyer said future research should “explore whether hot flashes and night sweats have different underlying mechanisms,” which may suggest different management strategies for the two experiences.