The Women's Health Questionnaire (WHQ): Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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The Women's Health Questionnaire (WHQ): Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Myra S Hunter* Address: Department of Psychology, King's College London, Adamson Centre, St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7EH, UK Email: Myra S Hunter* - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 10 September 2003 Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2003, 1:41
Received: 24 July 2003 Accepted: 10 September 2003
This article is available from: http://www.hqlo.com/content/1/1/41 © 2003 Hunter; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
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Abstract The Women's Health Questionnaire (WHQ) is a measure of mid-aged women's emotional and physical health. Since its publication in 1992 the WHQ has been widely used in multinational clinical trials, in epidemiological studies as well as in the evaluation of non-medical treatments. In particular the WHQ has been included as a quality of life measure in trials of hormonal preparations for peri and post menopausal women and in studies using a variety of preventative interventions for midaged and older women. The questionnaire was developed in English and standardised on a sample of women aged 45–65 years. It is reliable, has good concurrent validity and is sensitive to detecting change, and is available in 27 languages. The range of subscales included in the WHQ enable a detailed assessment of dimensions of emotional and physical health, such as depression, anxiety, sleep problems, somatic symptoms, with optional subscales for menstrual problems and sexual difficulties. The WHQ is the first measure to be included in the MAPI Research Institute's database, the International Health-related Quality of Life Outcomes Database (IQOD). Drawing upon data from international studies this project aims to produce reference values for cross-culturally valid, reliable and responsive quality of life instruments. In addition to this work, a revised shorter version of the WHQ is currently being developed.
Why assess Health-Related Quality of Life with the Women's Health Questionnaire (WHQ)? The use of health related quality of life (QOL) measures has increased exponentially during the past 20 years. There is clearly a need for valid and reliable instruments that can be used in epidemiological and multinational studies. The WHQ [1] is one of the most frequently utilised measures in the assessment of QOL in mid-aged populations of women. The WHQ was originally designed to assess symptom perceptions during the menopause
transition and for older postmenopausal women, in response to the lack of available instruments standardised for this age group. It is within this age range (45–65 years) that hormonally mediated changes, such as vasomotor symptoms and vaginal dryness, menstrual changes and age-related bodily changes, suc
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