Assessment of menopause-related symptoms in mid-aged women with the 10-item Cervantes Scale.

Objective: To develop a short 10 item version of the original menopause Cervantes Scale (CS) in order to assess menopausal symptoms in a large cohort of mid-aged Colombian women.

Methods: Reliability of the new short tool was assessed through internal consistency determination (Cronbach's alpha values) and intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) analysis. Ten items out of the 31 composing the original CS were selected according to their clinical relation with menopausal symptoms. Subsequently the short tool was used to assess menopausal symptoms and related factors among 1739 mid-aged women.

Results: The CS-10 displayed a mean (±SD) ICC value of 0.45 (±0.06) and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.778 suggesting good internal reliability. For the entire sample median [interquartile range] CS-10 global scores were 10.0 [12.0], and for pre-, peri- and postmenopausal women: 8.0 [9.2], 9.0 [9.0] and 14.0 [14.0], respectively. Median global CS-10 scores significantly increased with menopausal status, marital status and ethnicity. Multiple linear regression analysis determined that higher global CS-10 scores (worse quality of life) correlated with age, parity, years since menopause, body mass index, ethnics (black) and smoking habit.

Conclusion: The CS-10 seems to be a simple instrument that may aid everyday clinical consultation and help at performing an accurate diagnosis of menopause-related symptoms. Further studies are needed to confirm our preliminary findings.