Nursing Students’ Meaning-Making of Menopause: A Qualitative Study Using the Story Completion Method

Introduction: This study aimed to examine nursing students' perceptions of menopause and how they make sense of menopause using the story completion method.Methods: This was a qualitative study conducted using the story completion method. The study included 45 nursing students from a nursing department at a public university (34 women and 11 men; 15 students each from the second, third and fourth years). Data were collected using a story completion form based on a fictional character, Zeynep, who was experiencing the onset of menopause. Students were asked to write about Zeynep's feelings and thoughts, daily life, social environment, approach to healthcare services, and the process that might occur after a nursing consultation. The data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis.Results: Four main themes were identified: “Constructing menopause as a loss of body and feminine identity”, “The gap between having knowledge and being able to cope”, “The dual role of the social environment: Support, trivialisation, and silence”, and “The pathway to healthcare: Resistance, threshold, and transformation through nursing consultation”. Menopause was mostly associated with ageing, the end of fertility, and alienation from the body; however, in some stories it was also constructed through positive meanings, such as relief from menstrual pain and pregnancy anxiety. The social environment was represented as both supportive and trivialising, while nursing consultation was positioned as a transformative threshold that reduced uncertainty and supported self-management. However, the nurse's role was mainly limited to providing information and lifestyle advice, while sexuality, privacy, and family counselling were addressed less frequently.Conclusion: Nursing students conceptualise menopause as a multidimensional process extending beyond biological transition to encompass feminine identity, body image, the social environment, privacy, and nursing counselling. The findings indicate that menopause education in nursing may be strengthened by integrating symptom management with psychosocial, cultural, and relational dimensions.