Assessing menopause symptoms in women with traumatic brain injury: the development and initial testing of a new scale

With greater survival rates after catastrophic injury, more women with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are living longer than ever. However, knowledge about this transition in these women is largely unexamined and there are no scales that have been developed to assess the experience of symptoms. To add...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Women & health 2024-01, Vol.64 (1), p.51-64
Main Authors: Kalpakjian, Claire Z., Hanks, Robin, Quint, Elisabeth H., Millis, Scott, Sander, Angelle M., Lequerica, Anthony H., Bushnik, Tamara, Brunner, Robert, Rapport, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain
Cognitive ability
Cognitive interviews
Head injuries
Injuries
Measures
Menopause
Post-menopause
rasch analysis
survey
Survival
Trauma
Traumatic brain injury
Women
Womens health
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Summary:With greater survival rates after catastrophic injury, more women with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are living longer than ever. However, knowledge about this transition in these women is largely unexamined and there are no scales that have been developed to assess the experience of symptoms. To address this gap, we developed and tested a new scale of menopause symptoms in midlife women with TBI. We selected candidate items from two existing measures based on feedback from focus group discussions with seven women with TBI. Twenty candidate items were tested in cognitive interviews with six women with TBI/1 non-TBI. Then, these were field tested with 221 participants (TBI, n = 68; non-TBI, n = 153) recruited from registries. Rasch analysis and convergent validity testing were used to evaluate the new scale. Results of the Rasch analysis indicate that overall, the scale fits well the Rasch model with evidence for unidimensionality. Differential item functioning indicated that the scale performed equally well for women with and without TBI and distinguished pre- and post-menopausal states. Convergent validity was found in the expected directions. These findings support further development of the new scale to understand the experience of menopause symptoms among women with TBI.
ISSN:0363-0242
1541-0331
DOI:10.1080/03630242.2023.2294969