Cross Cultural Adaptation of the Menopause Specific Questionnaire into the Persian Language

BACKGROUND: The menopause-specific quality-of-life (MENQOL) was developed as a specific tool to measure the health-related quality-of-life in menopausal women. Recently, it has been translated into about 15 languages. AIM: This study was performed to develop the Persian version of the MENQOL questionnaire from the original English language version. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study that evaluated 300 menopausal women attending five primary health-care centers in Shiraz. The “forward-backward” procedure was applied to translate the questionnaire from English to Persian by two independent translators and then back translated into English and was checked to ensure the correct translation. Then, participants were interviewed and the questionnaire filled out. RESULTS: Over all Cronbach's alpha was 0.9 and in subscales of vasomotor, psychosocial, physical and sexual were 0.8, 0.7, 0.8 and 0.3, respectively. However, the major items were acceptable (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7), but internal consistency in sexual item was poor (Cronbach's alpha = 0.3). The result of internal consistency was acceptable in subgroups of age, disease, education, marital status and smoking habit. CONCLUSIONS: The Persian MENQOL questionnaire demonstrates good internal consistency in vasomotor, physical and psychosocial domains, but not sexual. Therefore we suggest that, the items: “Vaginal dryness during intercourse” and “weight gain” should be deleted in Persian version of the MENQOL. This questionnaire can be used in Persian language and Iranian culture in different subgroups of age, marital status and educational level as well as in individuals with hypertension and diabetes.