HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY AND PREVIOUS USE OF ORAL-CONTRACEPTIVES AMONG SWEDISH WOMEN

Objectives: To assess the current and previous use of hormone replacem ent therapy (HRT) and alternative remedies in a postmenopausal populat ion and to relate HRT use to previous use of oral contraceptives. Mate rial and methods: All 1323 women living in Linkoping of 55 or 56 years old during 1995 were sent a questionnaire asking for data with relati on to health and climacteric symptoms as well as to previous and curre nt use of HRT, oral contraceptives and alternative remedies. Results: Current use of HRT was more common among women who previously used ora l contraceptives (41.3%) than among women who had never used oral cont raceptives (23.1%). HRT users were also more often physically active, had undergone hysterectomy and had lighter occupation than non-users. Of all women 35% were current users of HRT, half of them for at least 2 years, whereas only 5% had tried HRT and abandoned therapy. Alternat ive remedies were used by 5% of the women as therapy for climacteric c omplaints, and about four times as many women had tried such therapy b ut abandoned it. The only characteristic about use of alternative medi cines was that they were used less often by women who had been hystere ctomized. No woman treated for breast cancer used HRT and only few of them used alternative remedies. Conclusions: The prevalence of HRT use , as well as compliance, was high. Previous use of oral contraceptives probably affected the attitude towards using HRT.