Evaluation of the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire: a factor-analytic approach.

Objective: Despite being used in multiple studies, the Menopause-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL) has not been assessed with factor analysis, a common method of item reduction in quality of life tools.

Methods: The Menopause Epidemiology Study is a cross-sectional population-based study of women 40 to 65 years old in the United States chosen from a source population selected by random digit dialing and probability sampling. We focused on 2,703 postmenopausal women for our analyses.

Accuracy of reporting bleeding during pregnancy.

Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy has been considered a marker of an at-risk pregnancy, but the accuracy of reported bleeding has not been assessed. We sought to evaluate the agreement in vaginal bleeding reports based on prospective daily diary and retrospective recall at first-trimester interview and to investigate predictors of reporting accuracy. Participants recruited prior to pregnancy for a community-based pregnancy cohort (n = 153) completed web-based daily diaries beginning before pregnancy until the end of the first trimester.

Trends in interventions to reduce perinatal human immunodeficiency virus type 1 transmission in North Carolina.

Background: Mother-to-child transmission of HIV has decreased in industrialized countries because of widespread use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by HIV-infected pregnant women and perhaps to increased use of elective cesarean section. We evaluated changes in the use of ART and mode of delivery among HIV positive pregnant women in North Carolina.

Methods: We reviewed the medical records of HIV-exposed infants born in North Carolina between January 1, 1998, and December 31, 1999, who were tested for HIV DNA.

Comparison of an assay using signal amplification of the heat-dissociated p24 antigen with the Roche Monitor human immunodeficiency virus RNA assay.

We compared an assay using signal amplification of a heat-dissociated p24 antigen (HDAg) with the Roche Monitor human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) RNA assay. The two assays gave comparable results when 130 specimens from 130 patients were tested (r = 0.60, P < 0.