Adaptation of Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire for Gwalior Region, India

Abstract

The purpose was to adapt the Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire Indian Version by Chandra, Chaturvedi and Isaac developed in 1989, which itself was a modified and abridged version of Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire developed originally by Brooks-Gunn and Ruble in 1980. Attitudes tend to change and hence there was a need to adapt this more than three-decades old questionnaire so as to make it more suitable for use in the current times. Additionally, their sample consisted of the females from the southern part of India. The proposed questionnaire was meant to be used for the first author’s PhD data collection in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India. Due to the cultural differences, the need to adapt it for the females of the northern part of India also seemed important. Three females were shown the original questionnaire initially to check face validity. Apart from the other suggestions, it was recommended that the items be translated in Hindi for the local women in Gwalior to comprehend the items in English better. Later, 16 domain experts (doctors, mental health professionals and local women) were shown the questionnaire with the items in English along with Hindi (conceptual translation) for their feedback. Suggestions were incorporated in the final draft accordingly and the items were rechecked with back-translation. Semantical challenges and issues pertaining to interpretation and understanding of the items were found. Items related to religious beliefs and preferences for sexual activities were considered as controversial by many domain experts and hence removed from the final draft. Additionally, an English phrase presented semantic difficulties. Grammar and sentence structure-related issues were also considered. The total number of items were reduced from 30 to 27.