The best-worse scaling approach: prioritizing burdensome menopause symptoms among Cambodian women

The objective of this study was to prioritize the most burdensome menopause symptoms among Cambodian women utilizing the best-worst scale (BWS). In total, 180 women aged 40-60 who lived in a community setting were recruited from four regions of Cambodia via convenience sampling. Using the BWS, 12 choice sets were prepared by combining 11 symptoms from the menopause rating scale (MRS), and the BWS choice sets were generated with the orthogonal main effects design (OMED). Counting approach determined the women's health priorities and calculated the best-minus-worst (BW) score. The modeling approach measured each respondent's basic utility function. Of the 180 participants, 41.1% were between the ages of 40 and 49, and 25.0% were over 50. The counting and modeling approaches revealed that heart discomfort was the most burdensome symptom (coefficient 0.739, p < .001) followed by joint and muscular discomfort (coefficient 0.606, p < .001) and sleep problems (coefficient 0.507, p < .001), whereas vaginal dryness was the least burdensome symptoms (coefficient -0.164, p = .018). This study revealed that the most burdensome menopause symptom among Cambodian women was heart discomfort while vaginal dryness was the least burdensome. The BWS enabled to prioritize the burdensome menopausal symptoms which warrants future studies using the BWS.