[Pretest survey on the Chinese menopause rating scale].
OBJECTIVE
To select the items from the Chinese menopause rating scale (CMRS) through pre-testing those people with menopausal syndromes.


METHODS
293 people were surveyed in Guangzhou in 2005, among which 196 people with menopausal syndromes and others without. Psychometrics methods were employed to develop the scale. The item pools were all round. Methods used would include: focus group discussion and interviews, subjective evaluation method and Delphi method, to preliminarily screen the items. Data on scales measured from 196 cases with and 97 subjects without menopausal syndromes during the menopausal period, were collected. Again, seven statistical methods were employed to select the items.


RESULTS
The 40-items scale for menopausal syndrome was formed to include: a) three domains: somatic (18-items), psychological (14-items) and social (5-items); b) one general appraisal item; c) two lie-test items.


CONCLUSIONS
The Chinese menopausal syndrome scale we used seemed to possess good content validity, feasibility and intra-class reliability.
Wen
Ze-huai
ZH
The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
Nie
Guang-ning
GN
Wang
Xiao-yun
XY
Yang
Hong-yan
HY
Zhang
Chun-ling
CL
Wu
Da-rong
DR
Wei
Shao-bin
SB
He
Jin-cai
JC
Lu
Su
S
D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008593:Menopause / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires