• The Effects of Psychological Interventions on Menopausal Hot Flashes: A Systematic Review
  • Forouzan Elyasi,1 Zohreh Shahhosseini,2 Elahe Samami,3,*
    1. Department of Psychiatry, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Center, Addiction Institute, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
    2. Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Sexual and Reproductive Health Research Center. Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Sari, Iran.
    3. Student of Midwifery counseling. Student Research committee. Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. Sari, Iran.


  • Introduction: Menopause is just a normal physiological phenomenon, closely identified with a great deal of physical-psychological symptoms, including hot flash (HF) with a prevalence rate of 20-80. Therefore, various pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions have been thus far practiced to reduce this common symptom of menopausal transition. This systematic review was fulfilled to evaluate the effects of psychological interventions on menopausal HFs.
  • Methods: In this review, the databases of Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, Science Direct, the Cochrane Library, and Scientific Information Database (SID) were searched applying the Boolean Searching Operators as well as the keywords of “hot flashes”, “menopause”, “psychological intervention”, and “vasomotor symptoms”. Accordingly, a total number of 20847 articles completed during 2000-2019 were retrieved. After excluding the duplicate and irrelevant ones, the quality of 19 clinical or quasi-experimental clinical trials was assessed via the Jadad scale.
  • Results: The interventions implemented in the studies on menopausal HFs included cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), hypnotherapy, and relaxation techniques. According to this review, all the articles had reported improvements in HFs in postmenopausal women, except for four studies. Moreover, six of the 19 articles had an acceptable quality, with reference to the Jadad scale.
  • Conclusion: Based on the results of the articles examined, most psychological interventions could boost menopausal HFs.
  • Keywords: Menopause, Hot Flashes, Hot Flash Symptoms, Psychological Interventions, Psychotherapy