title: Is the Menopause Rating Scale accurate for diagnosing sexual dysfunction among climacteric women?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although several tools have been designed to assess quality of life (QoL) among middle-aged women their capacity to specifically assess sexual dysfunction (SD) remains uncertain. Moreover, if SD impairs QoL within this population, then sexual assessment becomes a key issue.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the accuracy of the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) in diagnosing SD among climacteric women.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this cross-sectional study 370 women aged 40-59 years filled out the MRS and the Female Sexual Functioning Index (FSFI) simultaneously. SD among surveyed women was defined as those obtaining a total FSFI score of <or=26.55. A receiver-operator curve (ROC) was used to plot and measure the diagnostic accuracy of one MRS item (item 8, assessing sexual problems) using the FSFI total score as a gold standard.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean age of surveyed women was 49.3+/-5.8 years. A 56.5% of them were married, 44.3% were postmenopausal, 66.8% were sexually active and 57% had SD (FSFI total score <or=26.55). ROC curve determined a score >or=1 in the MRS item 8 as a cut-off value for discriminating women with SD (78% sensitivity and 62% specificity with an area below the curve of 0.70 Swett).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The MRS was moderately accurate for diagnosing SD among climacteric women. More research is warranted in this regard.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jara
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fuenzalida
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Figueroa
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: del Prado
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.forename: Juan E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Blümel
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chedraui
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002979:Climacteric / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012735:Sexual Dysfunction, Physiological / Q000175:diagnosis*; D020018:Sexual Dysfunctions, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires