Andropause education improved sleep in retired men

Andropause — the age-related decline in testosterone in men — is described in this study as having a significant impact on the general health and sleep quality of ageing men, particularly after retirement. Unlike menopause, it receives comparatively little public attention, and many older men may not recognise its symptoms or know how to manage them. The researchers asked whether simply educating retired men about andropause, using a structured programme delivered remotely, could improve their general health and sleep — a low-cost approach if it works.

This quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study ran from October 2022 to March 2024 at Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Sixty retired male employees were selected using stratified quota sampling followed by simple random sampling, then assigned to an intervention or control group with 30 men per group. The intervention group received a four-week virtual training programme about andropause delivered via WhatsApp, while controls received standard treatment. General health and sleep quality were measured at baseline, after the intervention, and two months later, using the General Health Questionnaire and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.

The intervention group showed a significant improvement in general health (P < 0.001), while the control group did not change (P = 0.834). Repeated measures ANOVA confirmed significant effects of time (η² = 0.232) and a time-by-group interaction (η² = 0.226) on general health. Sleep quality also improved in the intervention group (P = 0.002) with no change in controls (P = 0.621); for sleep, the analysis showed significant time (P = 0.011, η² = 0.087) and group effects (P = 0.006, η² = 0.123). Baseline demographic characteristics did not differ between groups.

This adds to evidence that targeted health education — even delivered entirely through a messaging app — can shift self-reported health outcomes in older adults, a population often assumed to be hard to reach digitally. However, the design is quasi-experimental rather than a fully powered randomised trial, the sample was small and drawn from a single institution's retirees, and outcomes were questionnaire-based, which leaves room for expectation and reporting effects. Whether the improvements persist beyond two months, and whether they generalise to other cultures and settings, remain open questions.

For men approaching or past retirement, this is a reason to think that understanding age-related hormonal changes — what andropause is, what symptoms it can bring — may itself be part of feeling and sleeping better, independent of any medical treatment. It also suggests that useful health education does not have to happen in a clinic; a structured remote programme was enough to move the measured outcomes here. This is early, small-scale evidence, so it is a signal about the value of health literacy rather than proof of a specific programme.