Psychometric properties of the Menopause Specific Quality of Life questionnaire among Thai women with a history of breast cancer.

PURPOSE: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Thai Menopause Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL) instrument in menopausal Thai women with a history of breast cancer.

METHODS

Two hundred and ninety women with a history of breast cancer who reported hot flashes completed the Thai MENQOL. Internal consistency reliability and item analysis were used to evaluate the reliability of the Thai MENQOL. Construct validity was evaluated by examining the correlations between the self-reported hot flash frequency and severity with the vasomotor MENQOL subscale (convergent validity); and assessed using exploratory factor analysis (structural validity).

RESULTS

The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the MENQOL total scale was 0.86 and for the vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, sexual domains were 0.73, 0.78, 0.81, and 0.83, respectively. Self-reported frequency and severity of hot flashes were correlated significantly with the vasomotor subscale (r's ≥ 0.50, p's < 0.001). The single item "increased facial hair" was poorly correlated with most items (r = 0.13). Confirmatory factor analysis supported four factors explaining 42.35% of the total variance. Item-domain correlation analysis showed that all items correlated more strongly with their own domains than with other domains.

CONCLUSIONS

The Thai version of the MENQOL demonstrates good psychometric properties (internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, and structural validity). We recommend removal of the single item, "increased facial hair" from the Thai version due to low correlations with most items. The Thai MENQOL can be used to measure menopause-related quality of life in Thai women with a history of breast cancer experiencing menopausal symptoms.