{"title":"The Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MEDI-Q): reliability and validity of the German version.","authors":"Yvonne Görlich, Elena Richter","doi":"10.1186/s12905-026-04608-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Menstrual distress affects a substantial proportion of individuals of reproductive age and is associated with impaired quality of life and psychological comorbidities, yet validated German-language instruments for its assessment are lacking. The present study examined the reliability and validity of the German version of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MEDI-Q), a 25-item self-report instrument previously validated in Italian, English, and Indonesian.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A community sample of N = 1,035 German-speaking women completed the MEDI-Q alongside the DASS-21, the PAF10, and a global rating of menstrual symptom severity. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and structural validity via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were examined.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Internal consistency was high (α = 0.839, ω = 0.844) and test-retest reliability acceptable over a naturalistic long-term interval (ICC = 0.823). MEDI-Q Total Score, MS, and MSD correlated negatively with age and positively with psychological distress, premenstrual symptoms, and global symptom severity, while the Menstrual Specificity Index (MESI) showed a significantly weaker and statistically distinct association with the global rating. Among three competing factor models, the theoretically proposed 5-factor structure showed the best relative fit, though none of the models reached conventional fit thresholds (CFI/TLI ≥ 0.90), and structural validity warrants further investigation. Applying the proposed cut-off of ≥ 20, 36.4% of the community sample exceeded this threshold.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The German MEDI-Q represents a psychometrically adequate instrument for standardised assessment of menstrual distress in German-speaking contexts, facilitating cross-cultural comparisons across four language versions, while structural validity remains unestablished and the instrument should be interpreted as a total score measure pending further investigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":9204,"journal":{"name":"BMC Women's Health","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3000,"publicationDate":"2026-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13366723/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BMC Women's Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-026-04608-7","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Background: Menstrual distress affects a substantial proportion of individuals of reproductive age and is associated with impaired quality of life and psychological comorbidities, yet validated German-language instruments for its assessment are lacking. The present study examined the reliability and validity of the German version of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MEDI-Q), a 25-item self-report instrument previously validated in Italian, English, and Indonesian.
Methods: A community sample of N = 1,035 German-speaking women completed the MEDI-Q alongside the DASS-21, the PAF10, and a global rating of menstrual symptom severity. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, and structural validity via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were examined.
Results: Internal consistency was high (α = 0.839, ω = 0.844) and test-retest reliability acceptable over a naturalistic long-term interval (ICC = 0.823). MEDI-Q Total Score, MS, and MSD correlated negatively with age and positively with psychological distress, premenstrual symptoms, and global symptom severity, while the Menstrual Specificity Index (MESI) showed a significantly weaker and statistically distinct association with the global rating. Among three competing factor models, the theoretically proposed 5-factor structure showed the best relative fit, though none of the models reached conventional fit thresholds (CFI/TLI ≥ 0.90), and structural validity warrants further investigation. Applying the proposed cut-off of ≥ 20, 36.4% of the community sample exceeded this threshold.
Conclusions: The German MEDI-Q represents a psychometrically adequate instrument for standardised assessment of menstrual distress in German-speaking contexts, facilitating cross-cultural comparisons across four language versions, while structural validity remains unestablished and the instrument should be interpreted as a total score measure pending further investigation.
期刊介绍：
BMC Women''s Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of the health and wellbeing of adolescent girls and women, with a particular focus on the physical, mental, and emotional health of women in developed and developing nations. The journal welcomes submissions on women''s public health issues, health behaviours, breast cancer, gynecological diseases, mental health and health promotion.
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