[Heavy menstrual bleeding affects quality of life in adolescents]

Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) occurs in 37% of adolescents and compromise their quality of life.

To measure the magnitude of the impact of the SME on the quality of life in adolescents.

We interviewed adolescents diagnosed with HMB between 10 and 18 years old and one of their guardians. PedsQL 4.0 generic core scale was applied to measure quality of life, its Proxy PedsQL 4.0 version was applied to the guardian and 3 more questions to adolescents about limitation of daily activities. The concordance between the guardian's perception of the adolescent quality of life and the adolescent's perception was evaluated with the Bland and Altman graph.

46 adolescents and guardians were evaluated. The total average PedsQL 4.0 score for adolescents was 64.48 (SD 14.54), with a range of 18.48 to 88.04 with a greater involvement in the emotional dimension. 50% of adolescents missed school, 80.4% physical education and 65.2% outdoor activities or parties. There was no agreement between the perception of the girls and guar dians.

We evidence a deterioration in the quality of life of the surveyed adolescents, being the emotional dimension most affected. The performance in the questionnaire was also lower than in samples of chronic diseases published with this same tool.