ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Women's health has been a global concern for many decades. As menopause is midway between the challenges of adulthood and despair of old age, comes the changes of menopause in women. The menopause rating scale (MRS) is widely used to assess menopause-related symptoms. The MRS was first published in 1990 for assessing menopause symptoms. However, no reliable and valid tools are available in the Gujarati language to assess the individuals with menopause symptoms. AIM: The aim of the study was to translate and find out reliability and validity of the Gujarati version of MRS in postmenopausal women. METHODS: The study was carried out in three phases: The first phase was the translation of scale into the Gujarati language; the second phase was a pilot study on 30 postmenopausal women age assesses the comprehensibility of the prefinal version; and the third phase was to find out the reliability and validity of the final version of scale. RESULTS: The total value of intraclass correlation coefficient of test-retest reliability was 0.88, with the all items having individual intraclass correlation coefficients score ranging from 0.74 to 0.92. Reliability estimated by internal consistency reached a Cronbach's alpha of 0.94 and ranging from 0.85 to 0.95 test-retest. CONCLUSION: The Gujarati version of MRS is a reliable and valid tool for assessing the menopausal symptoms and health-related quality of life in Guajarati-speaking populations.
