Abstract

• Purpose
  The purpose of this study was to construct a measurement instrument for climacteric symptoms among Korean and Japanese women.
• Methods
  From Dec. 1^st of 2003 to March 30^th of 2004, in-depth interviews were made with 26 women (15 in Jinju, Korea and 11 in Nagasaki, Japan) aged from 45 to 59 years who had not taken hormone replacement therapy to relieve the climacteric symptoms. A draft questionnaire with 45 items was constructed on the basis of the interview data and literature review. Three obstetricians, three PhDs in nursing science, and a chief nurse who was exclusively in charge of the climacteric management, examined the draft questionnaire to evaluate content validity. After deletions 39 items remained for a preliminary questionnaire. A survey was conducted by using a convenient sampling method in Jinju of Korea and Nagasaki of Japan during the period from April 1^st, 2004 to July 10^th, 2005.
• Results
  Factor analysis identified 4 factors, which were “mental and psychological symptoms”, “physical symp-toms”, “loss of autonomic nervous system symptoms”, “sexual symptoms”. These four factors explained 46.9% of total variance.
• Conclusions
  The results demonstrated that climacteric symptom scale was multidimensional, and the reliability and validity of the scale was supported.
• Keywords: Climacteric symptom; Factor analysis

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