THE WOMENS HEALTH QUESTIONNAIRE - A MEASURE OF MID-AGED WOMENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

When assessing mood and general health of mid-aged women, the effects of hormonal changes (and resulting symptoms such as hot flushes) and changes associated with age (such as in sleep patterns) can confound the results. A questionnaire was specifically developed to measure subjective reports of emotional and physical well-being of women aged 45 to 65 years. The relationships between symptoms was explored using factor analysis and a range of subscales was derived. Depressed mood and anxiety formed separate scales, as did sleep problems, somatic symptoms, menstrual problems and sexual behaviour. Vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and night sweats) made up an additional scale. The full scale, with scoring information and norms for two samples ((i) 682 women aged 45-65, and (ii) 55 women aged 23-38) is provided. Test-retest reliability was found to be high (range 0.69-0.96) and concurrent validity for the depressed mood scale was confirmed by comparison with the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg, 1972), which measures mood disturbance in community samples.