Development of a dysmenorrhea quality of life scale based on Traditional Chinese Medicine theory / 国际中医中药杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:Dysmenorrhea is the common gynecological problem among adolescent girls and women of reproductive age. This study aim to develop a dysmenorrhea Quality of Life (QoL) scale based on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theory.Methods:We conducted focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with TCM gynecologists and patients, and adapted items from previously published scales. We generated an initial pool of 41 items with 8 domains. Delphi method was used to item preliminary selection. Then, we administered the items to a sample of adolescent girls ( n=200), and the distribution of survey items, discrete trend, factor analysis, correlation coefficient, Cronbach’s α coefficient were used to select items. Results:After two rounds of Delphi, a total of thirty items were included in the dysmenorrhea QoL scale. The expert positive coefficient were 100% and 83.3% with high motivation. The authoritative coefficient were greater than 0.7, the results showing authoritative and reliable. The Kendall’s coefficient of concordance W was 0.333 ( χ2=128.271, P<0.001). In sample analysis, the items were deleted when they met more than two standards. The final scale retained 20 items, covering 8 dimensions. Conclusions:The methods for selection of dysmenorrhea QoL scale based on TCM theory were preferable. Given the paucity of research in this area, this new dysmenorrhea QoL scale may provide opportunities for the patient-reported outcome (PRO) evaluation in the field of TCM.