Browsing by Author "Woods, Nancy Fugate"

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    MsFLASH Participants’ Priorities for Alleviating Menopausal Symptoms
    (Taylor and Francis, 2015) Carpenter, Janet S.; Woods, Nancy Fugate; Otte, Julie L.; Guthrie, Katherine A.; Hohensee, Chancellor; Newton, Katherine M.; Joffe, Hadine; Cohen, Lee; Sternfeld, Barbara; Lau, R. Jane; Reed, Susan D.; LaCroix, Andrea Z.; Department of Nursing, IU School of Nursing
    Objective To describe self-reported menopausal symptom priorities and their association with demographics and other symptoms among participants in an intervention trial for vasomotor symptoms (VMS). Methods Cross-sectional study embedded in the MsFLASH 02 trial, a three-by-two factorial design of yoga vs. exercise vs. usual activity and omega-3-fatty acid vs. placebo. At baseline, women (n = 354) completed hot flush diaries, a card sort task to prioritize symptoms they would most like to alleviate, and standardized questionnaires. Results The most common symptom priorities were: VMS (n = 322), sleep (n = 191), concentration (n = 140), and fatigue (n = 116). In multivariate models, women who chose VMS as their top priority symptom (n = 210) reported significantly greater VMS severity (p = 0.004) and never smoking (p = 0.012), and women who chose sleep as their top priority symptom (n = 100) were more educated (p ≤ 0.001) and had worse sleep quality (p < 0.001). ROC curves identified sleep scale scores that were highly predictive of ranking sleep as a top priority symptom. Conclusions Among women entering an intervention trial for VMS and with relatively low prevalence of depression and anxiety, VMS was the priority symptom for treatment. A card sort may be a valid tool for quickly assessing symptom priorities in clinical practice and research.