Impact of vulvovaginal atrophy therapies on postmenopausal women's quality of life in the CRETA study measured by the Cervantes scale

•The Cervantes scale allows the quality of life of postmenopausal women to be measured.•Vulvovaginal atrophy impairs the quality of life of postmenopausal women.•Women treated with ospemifene have a better quality of life than those treated with local therapies.•These benefits of ospemifene are more evident in the domains of sexual and couple relations. To assess the correlation of different vulvovaginal atrophy therapeutic options with the quality of life of postmenopausal women. The CRETA study is a descriptive, observational, cross-sectional, multicenter study designed to measure, besides treatment satisfaction and adherence, the quality of life of postmenopausal women diagnosed with vulvovaginal atrophy in 29 hospitals and centers across Spain. The study enrolled postmenopausal women currently receiving treatment with vaginal moisturizers, local estrogen therapy or ospemifene. Clinical features and treatment perceptions were collected by self-report questionnaire and quality of life was evaluated using the Cervantes scale. Among the 752 women included, the ospemifene cohort showed a statistically significant lower global score (44.9 ± 21.7) on the Cervantes scale (and therefore, a better quality of life) than the cohorts treated with moisturizers (52.5 ± 21.6, p = 0.003) or local estrogen therapy (49.2 ± 23.8, p = 0.0473). In the analysis by domains, ospemifene-treated women showed statistically significant better scores in menopause & health and psychological status than moisturizers-treated women (p