Development and validation of a menopause-specific quality of life scale for peri- and postmenopausal Thai women

Abstract

Objective: To develop a new instrument for the menopause-specific quality of life in Thai women and to study the experience of menopausal aspects and perception about quality of life in peri- and postmenopausal Thai women Research Design: A mixed-method research: qualitative-quantitative sequential study Method: The item generation was developed from focus group and In-depth interview and the content validity index (CVI), using ratings of item relevance by the content experts, will be computed.The item with CVI value less than 0.7 will be revised or excluded and each item was carefully worded. The final questionnaires were administered. The content validity and reliability test was done. Results:Fifty-seven peri- or postmenopausal women have participated in the focus group discussion and in-depth interview. We got 68 items across 8 dimensions after content analysis was done. There were “Physical Health”, “Psychological Health”, “Sexual Health”, Daily Activity”, “Familt”, “Social”, “Treatment” and “Economics”. Two hundred and eighty menopausal women were recruited from four collaborative hospitals. The average age was 56.9±7.7 years. A total of 22 items and 6 domains covering well-being, emotion, anxiety/fear, family, social and sexual health were identified. The content validity was analyzed by factor analysis and extreme group validation. A Cronbach’s coefficient alpha of each domain in MS-QoLS was between 0.61 – 0.83. Conclusion: The MS-QoL is initially validated menopause-specific QoL with 22 items across 6 domains for use inperi- or postmenopausal women in Thailand