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Review
. 2021 May 31;7(1):5.
doi: 10.1186/s40695-021-00063-6.

Review of menopausal palpitations measures

Ying Sheng  1 , Janet S Carpenter  2 , Charles D Elomba  1 , Jennifer S Alwine  1 , Min Yue  3 , Caitlin A Pike  4 , Chen X Chen  1 , James E Tisdale  3   5
Affiliations
Review

Review of menopausal palpitations measures

Ying Sheng et al. Womens Midlife Health. .

Abstract

Palpitations are reported commonly by women around the time of menopause as skipped, missed, irregular, and/or exaggerated heartbeats or heart pounding. However, much less is known about palpitations than other menopausal symptoms such as vasomotor symptoms. The objective of this review was to integrate evidence on menopausal palpitations measures. Keyword searching was done in PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO for English-language, descriptive articles containing data on menopause and palpitations and meeting other pre-specified inclusion criteria. Of 670 articles, 110 met inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Results showed that 11 different measures were used across articles, with variability within and between measures. Inconsistencies in the wording of measurement items, recall periods, and response options were observed even when standardized measures were used. Most measures were limited to assessing symptom presence and severity. Findings suggest that efforts should be undertaken to (1) standardize conceptual and operational definitions of menopausal palpitations and (2) develop a patient-friendly, conceptually clear, psychometrically sound measure of menopausal palpitations.

Keywords: Menopause; Outcome assessment; Palpitations; Patient-reported outcome measures; Symptom assessment.

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Conflict of interest statement

JSC reports personal fees from RoundGlass Inc., personal fees from Astellas Pharma Inc., personal fees from Kappa Santé, personal fees from Sojournix, and other from QUE oncology. YS, CDE, JSA, MY, CAP, CXC, and JET declare that they have no competing interests.

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