Background: Menopause is the descent in circulating estrogens that manifests clinically for the climacteric symptoms. These symptoms motivate the patient to consult to the physician. Objective: To know which are the symptoms that motivate women in the climacteric to begin hormonal therapy. Material and method: A transverse study was settled, 692 patients from the menopause cohort of Endocrine Research Unit, Centro Médico Nacional, IMSS participated. All patients signed the letter of informed consent. Complete clinical evaluation and taking samples of veined blood for the hormonal determinations of LH, FSH and estradiol were carried out. The approach of evaluation of the clinical symptoms was made with the scale of Greene that values six components: psychological, anxiety, depression, somatic, vasomotor and sexual, which quantifies the presence and intensity of the climacteric symptoms. Results: The four main symptoms that accompany the climacteric are: hot flushes, irritability, edginess and sickness. With the registered symptoms, the punctuation of the components in the scale of Greene showed a bigger frequency statistically with difference significant (p< 0.05) for the vasomotor and the depressive component compared with the rest of the components that integrate all the symptoms. Conclusions: Hot flushes and irritability are the symptoms found in the first time interview, also these are presented in more than half of the patients, therefore these symptoms can be considered as main cause to begin hormonal therapy. In accordance with the scale of Greene that allowed us to evaluate the symptoms in integrated form, the sexual component was a smaller frequency, maybe to that great number of patient does not dare to comment the sexual dysfunctions. However, at the moment has a wide therapeutic arsenal and forms of administration of estrogen therapy that have demonstrated to have a clinical-benefic effect for the control of the climacteric symptoms. Key words: menopause, climacteric symptoms, scale of Greene.