Background: There is a growing interest for the effects of weather changes on both healthy and psychiatric individuals. This study aims to validate a short questionnaire (METEO-Q) for the detection of meteoropathy and meteorosensitivity.
Methods: The METEO-Q was administered to 1099 (528 men, 571 women) healthy subjects. Factor analyses, internal consistency, and item analysis were undertaken to examine the factorial structure of the questionnaire.
Results: The METEO-Q has satisfactory factorial structure and internal reliability. Our results demonstrate that women have higher scores than man and, therefore, women mostly have meteoropathy.
Conclusions: Our findings support the use of the METEO-Q for collecting information regarding the effects of weather changes on healthy subjects and potentially on psychiatric patients.
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.