Aging Males' Symptoms scale: a standardized instrument for the practice.

The Aging Males' Symptoms (AMS) scale was designed and standardized as self-administered scale (a) to assess symptoms of aging (independent from those which are disease-related) among 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. It is a short and easy to apply instrument, it has a very simple evaluation scheme, and was internationally well accepted (translated into over 20 languages). Methodological test characteristics are: a) reliability measures: (internal consistency and test-retest stability) were found to be good across countries, b) validity: 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 across all age groups. The comparison of the AMS with the two established screening instruments for androgen deficiency showed sufficiently good compatibility. Consequently, a screening tool for hypogonadism was developed, consisting of the AMS scale, body mass index (BMI) and age. The test characteristics of this screening tool (sensitivity and specificity) are promising. Clinicians often consider validity as utility for outcome measurement. The AMS scale showed a convincing ability to measure treatment effects on quality of life across the full range of severity of complaints before therapy. The distribution of complaints of testosterone deficient men before therapy almost returned to normal values after 12 weeks of testosterone treatment.