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.