Assessment of health-related quality of life: Swedish version of polycystic ovary syndrome questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE

Polycystic ovary syndrome questionnaire (PCOSQ) was developed in USA to ascertain specific health-related quality of life (HRQL) in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The Swedish version of PCOSQ should be tested prior to its use in research and clinical practice and the aims of the study were as follows: (a) determine the test-retest reliability and (b) confirm the domain structure of the Swedish version of PCOSQ; a 26-item questionnaire, divided into the five domains: emotions, body hair, weight concerns, infertility concerns and menstrual irregularities.

METHODS

PCOSQ translation from English to Swedish was followed by a test-retest and a factor analysis of obtained PCOSQ completed twice by 69 women with PCOS.

RESULTS

The median age was 30 (21-37) years. The Kappa (kappa) statistic for the five domains ranged from 0.29 to 0.69 demonstrating fair to good agreement among items. The Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) for the five domains was high to excellent ranging from 0.79 to 0.96. The factor analysis presented six domains and the original domain structure was partly confirmed.

CONCLUSIONS

The Swedish version of PCOSQ is reliable and can be used to measure HRQL in PCOS. Researchers and clinicians should be aware of the benefits of PCOSQ.