Adaptation and Validity/Reliability Evaluation of Menstrual Bleeding Questionnaire in Turkish Adolescent Girls

Objective: The Menstrual Bleeding Questionnaire (MBQ) is a scale developed to identify women with heavy menstrual bleeding. The aim was to evaluate the validity/reliability of the Turkish version of this scale.

Methods: The MBQ was translated into Turkish and adapted to the adolescent age group. Face validity of the draft scale was tested by piloting. To ensure concurrent validity, MBQ was first applied together with the Short Form-36 (SF-36). Afterwards, both questionnaires were given to adolescent girls and the reliability of the scale was evaluated by retesting in a subgroup.

Results: The pilot study was performed with ten adolescent girls, median age 14.5 (13-16) years. The main follow-up reliability study included 251 girls medan age 16 (11-18) years, of whom 63 (25.1%) underwent retesting. There was a strong correlation between the results of the first MBQ and the second MBQ. The reliability coefficients of both the SF-36 and MBQ were above the acceptable limit of 0.70. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) sampling adequacy for the first application of the MBQ was above the good level (KMO=0.831, p<0.001). Eigen values of 48.73% were determined in four factors. When the pattern matrix of the first application of MBQ was examined, distribution of the items was generally regular. Receiver operator characteristics analysis of the MBQ values showed areas under the curve of the symptom effect (0.882), symptom (0.884) and severity (0.903) sub-dimension values were high. MBQ results revealed abnormal uterine bleeding in 11/251 (4.3%) cases.

Conclusion: This Turkish adaptation of the MBQ demonstrated good internal consistency, high reliability, and acceptable validity. Using it with adolescent Turkish girls will facilitate evaluation of conditions associated with abnormal uterine bleeding.