Assessment tool of Thai menopause-specific quality of life in Surat Thani province, Thailand

Abstract

Objective: To develop an assessment tool of Thai menopause-specific quality of life in Surat Thani Province, Thailand. Methodology: This study was divided research design into three phases as follows; phase 1 Concept clarification: a thorough study of related literature was conducted to search for the concept of menopause-specific quality of life and its existing instruments to guide developing instrument, phase II Item development: in-depth interviews with 30 Thai menopausal women in Surat Thani was conducted and an initial pool of items relating to menopause-specific quality of life was generated to develop the instrument, then, tested with 399 menopausal women, and phase III psychometric test: the developed questionnaire was tested for validity and reliability with 402 menopausal women. Result: The Thai Menopause-Specific Quality of Life instrument was well developed with 63 items, internal consistency reliability coefficient obtained 0.952, comprised of 3 domains including physic-psychological well-being (51 items), sexual-socio-economic well-being (9 items) and vasomotor well-being (3 items). Conclusion: The present study was directed to develop an effective instrument with integrity of psychometric property. This instrument was more likely meaningful to detect quality of life specific to Thai menopausal women.