Awareness of hormonal replacement therapy among females attending primary health care centers in Western Saudi Arabia

OBJECTIVE: To measure the awareness and the associations between knowledge, personal characteristics, decision making and intention to use hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) among women attending the Primary Health Care (PHC) Centers, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted among females attending the PHC centers. Three hundred females were enrolled in the study via multistage random sampling. This study was carried out during November 2001. The first stage was a simple random sampling wherein they choose one PHC center from each of the 6 PHC sectors, and in the second stage, a simple random sampling wherein they choose every third female above 35-year-old attending the selected PHC center for any reason during one month. All those females were interviewed by a questionnaire which include questions from Rabin's menopausal health questionnaire.

RESULTS: The awareness of HRT among females was 27%, and the higher awareness was among educated (P<0.001), and younger working women (P<0.001). The prevalence of using HRT among postmenopausal women was only 5%. The women obtained information of HRT from media 28.8%, from doctors 27.5% and from friends 13.8%. Forty-six percent of females are willing to use HRT, but 39% are unwilling to use. The major factors for women to decide to use or refuse HRT were lack of knowledge and physician's recommendation.

CONCLUSION: The awareness of HRT among the female general population was low (26.7%), and using HRT even lower (5%), but a high portion (46%) were willing to use HRT. Providing knowledge concerning benefits of risk of HRT will help women in making decisions relating to HRT.