Health-related quality of life in the Spanish women through and beyond menopause. Development and validation of the Cervantes Scale

There are numerous health-related quality of life questionnaires but only a few are specific for the menopause. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a specific scale, the Cervantes Scale, for menopause in Spanish women. This cross-sectional study included a pilot phase, construction of the questionnaire, validation, and test-retest reliability. A population-based sample of 2,274 women ponderated by age groups and education levels was used in the validation phase. Internal consistency was assessed with the Cronbach's alpha analysis. The final questionnaire included 31 items ("menopause and health" with 15 items made up of vasomotor symptoms, health and aging, "sexuality" with 4 items, "couple relationship" with 3 items and "psychical domain" with 9 items). The Cronbach's (coefficient of the scale was 0.9092. The correlation coefficient of the test-retest was r=0.847 (p