Menopause: part three

Welcome to the third module in our series looking at menopause. This module reproduces some content from the Menopause: an introduction for pharmacy professionals programme with the kind permission of the NHS-funded Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE), and is designed to give you an overview and better understanding of this area of practice. For more detailed information on this topic, please view the full programme on CPPE’s website: bit.ly/4iWaVGX. 

Before you begin, have you completed: part one and part two.

Learning objectives

After reading this module, and the online learning from CPPE, pharmacy technicians will:

• Feel able to initiate discussions about HRT use
• Know which key discussion points to make patients aware of
• Be aware of how HRT interacts with some common conditions.

For many women, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), when used appropriately, provides more benefits than risks. However, it is important to understand both the risks and benefits. These will vary between individuals, being strongly influenced by their baseline risk.

Baseline risk is affected by diet, lifestyle and past medical and family history. When discussing treatment options, you should include the benefits and risks of treatments. The following information is sourced from the British Menopause Society’s Tools for clinicians.¹