Objective: Chinese-language scales for assessing quality of life in women around menopause are rare. This study was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Chinese-language version of the Utian Quality of Life Scale (UQOL-C).
Methods: A sample of women (n = 434) between 41 and 60 years old was recruited from an obstetrics/gynecology outpatient department in Taipei. After translating the instrument, we conducted psychometric testing, which included internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity. Construct validity of the UQOL-C was examined by testing the correlations between the UQOL-C and the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey Taiwan version and between the UQOL-C and the Greene Climacteric Scale Chinese version.
Results: The Chinese translation captured the content of the original tool. The reliability coefficients (Cronbach α) for the quality of life domains measured were as follows: 0.86, overall; 0.85, occupational; 0.70, health-related; 0.66, emotional; and 0.61, sexual. The test-retest reliability of the UQOL-C was satisfactory (r = 0.88-0.91, P < 0.001). The construct validity of the UQOL-C was confirmed through significant correlations between scores on (1) the UQOL-C and the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey Taiwan version (r = 0.15-0.59, P < 0.01) and (2) the UQOL-C and the Greene Climacteric Scale Chinese version (r = -0.10 to -0.56, P < 0.05).
Conclusions: The UQOL-C was shown to be reliable and valid with this sample of women between 41 and 60 years old. The low Cronbach α values of the UQOL-C emotional and sexual domains suggested that the reliability of these two domains required further studies.