О.В. Иванова, Е.Н. Усольцева, Е.В. Брюхина

Validation of the Russian version of the Women’s Health Questionnaire (WHQ)

The aim of our study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Russian version of the specific Women?s Health Questionnaire (WHQ). 122 women with vegetative-vascular and psycho-emotional disorders in their natural or surgical menopauses and 24 patients with urogenital atrophic disorders were included in the study.
Validation of the Russian version of the WHQ was conducted in Multinational Center for Quality of Life Research (St. Petersburg, Russia) in accordance with international standards. The assessment of the psychometric properties of the WHQ included an assessment of the reliability, validity and sensitivity of the questionnaire. As a reliability of the WHQ ? Cronbach’s coefficient obtained. For 7 scales out of 9 values were sufficient (0.64–0.77).
The «known» groups validity showed that patients with vegetative-vascular and psycho-emotional disorders had higher (worse) score for vasomotor symptoms, menstrual symptoms, attractiveness compared to patients without these disorders. There were no differences in patients with natural menopause and surgical menopause. In addition the correlation between the severity of the menopausal disorders and the quality of life was examined.
Direct correlation between the heaviness of menopausal disorders (Modified Menopausal Index) and the deterioration of the patients’ quality of life (SF-36 scales) was gained. Additionally, statistically significant correlations of the SF-36 scales and the WHQ scales were found. As for sensitivity of the WHQ, statistically significant improvement in somatic symptoms, vasomotor symptoms, sleep problems scales during the six-month therapy with phytoestrogen was showed.
There was also an increase of score for the scales depressive mood and anxiety/fears. Moreover, a tendency to an increase of score for memory/concentration, attractiveness was explored, but it showed to be statistically insignificant. Thus, the Russian version of the WHQ is a reliable, valid and sensitive tool for assessing the quality of life of patients with climacteric disorders. The use of WHQ can be recommended for the assessment of patients and the effectiveness of the treatment of menopausal disorders along with traditional clinical methods.