Evaluation of The Everyday Memory Questionnaire-Revised in Menopausal Population: Understanding the Brain Fog During Menopause

Introduction Brain fog (i.e., memory complaints and concentration difficulties) is frequently reported during the menopausal transition. There is lack of standardized scales available to measure brain fog across the menopause transition. This study aimed to evaluate the factor structure of the Everyday Memory Questionnaire-Revised (EMQ-R) and to determine the most commonly reported everyday cognitive symptoms in a menopausal population. Methods 417 females, including 107 pre-menopausal, 149 peri-menopausal, and 161 early post-menopausal, met criteria and were included in the analyses. Memory and attention related symptoms were measured using the EMQ-R. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the model fit of the bifactor structure (attentional and retrieval) of the EMQ-R in menopausal populations and evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha test. One way ANOVA and MANCOVA were used to investigate the group differences of individual items and two subscales. Results CFA indicated that the bifactor model ( retrieval and attentional ) of the EMQ-R has a good fit in all three groups. A significant difference (with the highest mean score observed in peri-menopausal group) was identified in the retrieval subscale score ( F =3.17, p =0.043) but not in the attentional subscale or total scores amongst the three groups. Items (1, 3, 5) related to daily information retrieval problems were significantly reported in the peri-menopausal group. Discussion The EMQ-R serves as an instrument to measure memory and attention symptoms, referred to as ‘brain fog’ in menopause. Increased memory retrieval complaints reported by peri-menopausal group suggests a transition-related memory retrieval dysfunction during menopausal transition.