BACKGROUND
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest endocrine condition that affect women with an estimated prevalence of 10–15%[1-4]. PCOS is associated with reproductive and general health implications. It has a broad spectrum of clinical presentation with varying severity. It commonly presents as menstrual disturbances, hyperandrogenism, i.e: hirsutism, acne and alopecia, subfertility, obesity and psychological disturbances.[1]PCOS has been showed to have profound impact on a woman’s psychological wellbeing[5]. In 2003, the diagnosis of PCOS was proposed by the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) after a consensus meeting held in Rotterdam; the criteria were : the presence of (1) clinical or biochemical features of hyperandrogenism, (2) oligo-ovulation or anovulation (i.e. menstrual cycle disturbance) and/or (3) polycystic ovaries on ultrasound. PCOS is diagnosed when a women fulfil 2 out of 3 of these criteria and appropriate investigations have been performed to exclude other possible causes of menstrual disturbance and androgen excess.[1]
The symptoms associated with PCOS have led to significant reduction in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The affected aspect of HRQoL differ individually as each woman may present with different concerns related to PCOS. Adult women are mainly concerned about subfertility issues and hirsutism whereas adolescents are more likely to worry about acne and weight gain.
The impact of PCOS towards quality of life also differ among different ethnicity and background. Symptoms that are commonly associated with PCOS, such as acne, hirsutism, irregular menses, amenorrhea, obesity, and subfertility, are the major sources of psychological and behavioural disorder, and these clinical presentations varies in their impact on different ethnic groups. Cronin et-al[6] found that infertility and emotions subscales in the original PCOSQ has the highest impact score among African-American women with PCOS, whereas Huang-et-al [2] had showed that the burden of hirsutism on HRQoL in South Asians was less than that in Caucasians. On the other hand, weight and infertility were the worst domains on the condition-specific questionnaire using the validated Chinese version of PCOSQ. The Iranian study[7] findings showed that Iranians PCOS patient with more hirsutism, acne, menstrual irregularities, infertility and weight issues, will score poorer HRQoL compared to patient without these clinical symptoms.
Till date, validation of the Malay version has not be conducted hence no data on the HRQoL of the Malaysian population is available. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the reliability and validity of the Malay version of PCOSQ. Furthermore, this questionnaire would allow comparisons of results between different regions hence leading to improvement of HRQoL of women with PCOS by giving more targeted treatment.