Health-related quality of life questionnaire for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOSQ-50): a psychometric study with the Serbian version

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the measurement properties of the Health-related quality of life questionnaire for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOSQ-50) in a sample of Serbian women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Seventy-six women with PCOS from an endocrinology clinic and 28 healthy women participated between October 2016 and March 2017. The measure was rigorously translated and culturally adapted into Serbian. Psychometric evaluation included descriptive analysis, internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient), test-retest reliability (intraclass-correlation coefficient - ICC) and construct validity testing. Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranged from 0.67 to 0.96 for domain scales of PCOSQ-50 scores, while the ICCs for test-retest reliability for these domains ranged from 0.66 to 0.89. Women with PCOS had significantly lower scores than healthy women for hirsutism, obesity and menstrual disorders and the total PCOSQ-50 scale score (p ≤ 0.03), but not for the psychosocial and emotional, fertility, sexual function, and coping scales. These results show that the Serbian PCOSQ-50 measure is acceptable and could produce reliable and valid assessments of PCOS-related quality of life for at least four out of seven domains. Considering that validity testing is an iterative process, additional work is needed before the whole measure is used in routine clinical practice.

Keywords: Reliability; measurement error; polycystic ovary syndrome; validity.