The French aging males' symptoms (AMS) scale: Methodological review

Background: The AMS is an internationally used health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scale. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence that the French AMS scale measures HRQoL are as valid as other language versions. We also intend to show whether the application of AMS is really limited to aging males only or not. More generally, we like to demonstrate that the AMS scale is a relevant, validated, sensitive instrument to measure HRQoL and change of symptoms in France. Methods: We performed a representative survey in France to get data AMS scale data. The French data were compared with existing data from other European countries. Only community-based data were used for this comparison. Results and Discussion: Reliability (here consistency, Cronbach' s alpha) was found to be good and almost identical with other countries. Validity: the internal structure of the AMS (factorial analysis) was sufficiently comparable with the comparison group of other countries in Europe to conclude that the scale really measures the same phenomenon. The sub-scores and total score correlations (Pearson) were high (r=0.8-0.9) but only somewhat lower among the sub-scales (r = 0.5-0.7). This suggests that the domains are correlated. The comparison of the French AMS with the generic quality-of-life scale SF-12 showed a good correlation (Pearson r = 0.48 - 0.51) as reported from other countries. We observed also a good correlation between the AMS scale and the depression scale HAD (Pearson r = 0.62). The analysis of the AMS structure across age groups showed sufficient similarity to suggest that the AMS is also useful for younger age groups. Conclusion: The French AMS scale is a standardized HRQoL scale with good psychometric characteristics (reliability, validity) as shown for other international versions. We suggest that the AMS scale could be also used in age groups under 40 years to measure and compare HRQoL in males. Since the application of the AMS in younger age was not investigated before, confirmation in future studies is needed. © 2005 Myon et al., licensee BioMed Central Ltd.