Scale development and validation of perimenopausal women disability index in the workplace

Autor: Kyoko Nomura, Kisho Shimizu, Fumiaki Taka, Melanie Griffith-Quintyne, Miho Iida
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, Vol 29, Pp 4-4 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1342-078X
1347-4715
DOI: 10.1265/ehpm.23-00239
Popis: Background: Menopausal disorders include obscure symptomatology that greatly reduce work productivity among female workers. Quantifying the impact of menopause-related symptoms on work productivity is very difficult because no such guidelines exist to date. We aimed to develop a scale of overall health status for working women in the perimenopausal period. Methods: In September, 2021, we conducted an Internet web survey which included 3,645 female workers aged 45–56 years in perimenopausal period. We asked the participants to answer 76 items relevant to menopausal symptomatology, that were created for this study and performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses for the scale development. Cronbach’s alpha, receiver operating characteristic analysis, and logistic regression analysis were used to verify the developed scale. Results: Approximately 85% participants did not have menstruation or disrupted cycles. Explanatory factor analysis using the maximum likelihood method and Promax rotation identified 21 items with a four-factor structure: psychological symptoms (8 items, α = 0.96); physiological symptoms (6 items, alpha = 0.87); sleep difficulty (4 items, alpha = 0.92); human relationship (3 items, alpha = 0.92). Confirmatory factor analyses found excellent model fit for the four-factor model (RMSR = 0.079; TLI = 0.929; CFI = 0.938). Criterion and concurrent validity were confirmed with high correlation coefficients between each of the four factors, previously validated menopausal symptom questionnaire, and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory scales, respectively (all ps < 0.0001). The developed scale was able to predict absenteeism with 78% sensitivity, 58% specificity, and an AUC of 0.727 (95%CI: 0.696–0.757). Higher scores of each factor as well as total score of the scale were more likely to be associated with work absence experience due to menopause-related symptoms even after adjusting for Copenhagen Burnout Inventory subscales (all ps < 0.0001). Conclusion: We found that the developed scale has high validity and reliability and could be a significant indicator of absenteeism for working women in perimenopausal period.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals