Measuring symptoms and quality of life in menopausal transition: The Hungarian version of the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) and the Menopause Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17627/ALKPSZICH.2025.4.11Keywords:
menopause, menopause symptoms, quality of life in menopause, MRS, MENQOLAbstract
Background and Aims: Menopause currently affects about 1 million women in Hungary, thus it is becoming an essential healthcare priority to measure symptoms and quality of life during the menopausal transition period. Symptom checklists or questionnaires about life qulity in menopause however have not been adapted to Hungarian. The aim of our study is to remedy this situation and offer two menopause rating tools adopted to Hungarian: the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS; Heinemann et al., 2004) and the Menopause Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL; Hilditch et al., 1996), and examined their reliability and validity using a Hungarian sample of women.
Methods: Using an online survey including the Hungarian version of the MRS and MENQOL as well as the WHO wellbeing scale (WBI-5; Susánszky et al., 2006) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS-H; Diener et al., 1985; Martos et al., 2014) we measured participating Hungarian women aged between 45 and 55 (n = 557).
Results: We have observed a high level of inner consistency in case of the MRS (n = 11; α = 0,828) and MENQOL (n = 29; α = 0,935). The corresponding subscales of the two questionnaires there was a significant association shown by Spearman correlation. The factor structures of both MRS and MENQOL were confirmed using factor analysis. Subscales of MRS and MENQOL were related to life satisfaction and wellbeing (SWLS-H and WBI-5). We did not observe any significant differences between the various symptom-groups of menopause.
Conclusions: Based on our results both MRS and MENQOL can be used on Hungarian samples, however, MENQOL has better indices. The Hungarian adaptation of the two questionnaires offers the possibility of better understanding menopausal women’s quality of life and a more detailed examination of their symptomology in the future, as well as working out methods and interventions to improve it.
