Currently, no consensus has been reached in the field of Quality of Life (QoL) research on the impact of menopausal symptoms on QoL in ageing women. Published studies on relationships between menopausal estrogen depletion and mental health status, using different measurement approaches, have yielded conflicting findings. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe Quality of Life (QoL) in Italian women with menopausal symptoms compared to age-matched women from the general Italian population. METHODS: Data were collected using baseline Psychological General Well-being Index (PGWBI) scores from 155 women participating in a clinical trial and from 231 women participating in an epidemiological study. The PGWBI is a well validated and widely used self-administered instrument. The 22 items assess psychological and general well-being of respondents in six QoL domains: Anxiety, Depression, Positive Well-being, Self-control, General Health, and Vitality. The six subscale scores can be summed to provide a global score. RESULTS: Overall, poorer psychological well-being scores were reported by Italian women with menopausal symptoms compared to age-matched women from the general Italian population. Significantly poorer scores were found in the global score (p <0.0001) and in all six domains (p <0.0001 for each) except General health (p <0.1537). CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that the presence of menopausal symptoms in ageing women is associated an impaired quality of life in comparison to the general female population. Additional research is needed to assess the influence of each type of symptom on different components of psychological well-being, additional QoL domains which may be affected, and psychosocial correlates which may mediate between symptoms and outcome in menopausal women.