Farid Saad

The Aging Males' Symptoms (AMS) scale: Update and compilation of international versions

BackgroundThe interest of clinical research in aging males increased in recent years and thereby the interest to measure health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and symptoms of aging men. The Aging Males Symptoms scale (AMS) became the most commonly used scale to measure HRQoL and symptoms in aging males in many countries worldwide. The aim of this paper is to review the current state of the instrument particularly concerning versions of the scale in different languages in the light of the quality of the translation process.AMS versions availableMost of the translations were performed following international methodological recommendations for linguistic & cultural adaptation of HRQoL instruments. Mainly the English version was used as source language for the translation into Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, and Japanese (attached as additional PDF-files). Preliminary versions that were derived only from forward translations are of secondary quality and available in Finnish, Flemish, and Russian. It is recommended to complete the translation process for the latter languages before using them in international studies.Translations in processThe AMS scale is in the process of consensus finding of two existing French versions, and the versions in the Korean, Thai, and Indonesian languages have not yet been completed in the translation process.ConclusionThe AMS scale is obviously a valuable tool for assessing health related quality of life in aging men, because it is used worldwide. It is a standardized scale according to psychometric norms. Most of the currently available language versions were translated following international standards for linguistic and cultural translation of quality of life scales. Assistance is offered to help interested parties in the translation process.

The Aging Males' Symptoms (AMS) scale: review of its methodological characteristics

AbstractBackgroundThe current paper reviews data from different sources to get a closer impression on the psychometric and other methodological characteristics of the Aging Males Symptoms (AMS) scale gathered recently. The scale was designed and standardized as self-administered scale to (a) to assess symptoms of aging (independent from those which are disease-related) between groups of males under different conditions, (b) to evaluate the severity of symptoms over time, and (c) to measure changes pre- and post androgen replacement therapy. The scale is in widespread use (14 languages).MethodOriginal data from different studies in many countries were centrally analysed to evaluate reliability and validity of the AMS.ResultsReliability measures (consistency and test-retest stability) were found to be good across countries, although the sample size was sometimes small.nValidity: The internal structure of the AMS in healthy and androgen deficient males, and across countries was sufficiently similar to conclude that the scale really measures the same phenomenon. The sub-scores and total score correlations were high (0.8–0.9) but lower among the sub-scales (0.5–0.7). This however suggests that the subscales are not fully independent.The comparison with other scales for aging males or screening instruments for androgen deficiency showed sufficiently good correlations, illustrating a good criterion-oriented validity. The same is true for the comparison with the generic quality-of-life scale SF36 where also high correlation coefficients have been shown.Methodological analyses of a treatment study of symptomatic males with testosterone demonstrated the ability of the AMS scale to measure treatment effect, irrespective of the severity of complaints before therapy. It was also shown that the AMS result can predict the independently generated (physicians) opinion about the individual treatment effect.ConclusionThe currently available methodological evidence points towards a high quality of the AMS scale to measure and to compare HRQoL of aging males over time or before/after treatment, it suggests a high reliability and high validity as far as the process of construct validation could be pressed ahead yet. But certainly more data will become available, particularly from ongoing clinical studies.

Sweating attacks: key symptom in menopausal transition only for women?

OBJECTIVESnAging men are not as much aware of the fact as women that they, too, undergo some kind of menopausal transition and they notice the symptoms rarely. The key symptom of hot flushes/sweating is undisputed among women. The objective of this paper is to compare the frequency of episodes of sweating across gender and age groups.nnnMETHODSnA sample of 500 German males and a control sample of 153 women were asked to report about the frequency of types/causes of sweating in the course of aging.nnnRESULTSnOverall, the various types of sweating do not show any differences in frequency between males and females. A precipitous rise in frequency can be found in the 6th decade of life for both sexes. This applies in particular to sudden, unexpected episodes of sweating or constriction/anxiety with or without sweaty skin that occur at night (less frequently during the day), i.e. occurring without any obvious physical or mental stress. This seems to be an important symptom for the changes occurring at an age of over 50 years for both sexes.nnnCONCLUSIONnSensations of sweating occurring suddenly and unexpectedly, especially at night, but also during the day, seem to be similarly common and men and women.