Carpenter, Janet S.Woods, Nancy FugateOtte, Julie L.Guthrie, Katherine A.Hohensee, ChancellorNewton, Katherine M.Joffe, HadineCohen, LeeSternfeld, BarbaraLau, R. JaneReed, Susan D.LaCroix, Andrea Z.2016-08-042016-08-042015Carpenter, J. S., Woods, N. F., Otte, J. L., Guthrie, K. A., Hohensee, C., Newton, K. M., … LaCroix, A. Z. (2015). MsFLASH participants’ priorities for alleviating menopausal symptoms. Climacteric: The Journal of the International Menopause Society, 18(6), 859–866. http://doi.org/10.3109/13697137.2015.1083003https://hdl.handle.net/1805/10579Objective To describe self-reported menopausal symptom priorities and their association with demographics and other symptoms among participants in an intervention trial for vasomotor symptoms (VMS). Methods Cross-sectional study embedded in the MsFLASH 02 trial, a three-by-two factorial design of yoga vs. exercise vs. usual activity and omega-3-fatty acid vs. placebo. At baseline, women (n = 354) completed hot flush diaries, a card sort task to prioritize symptoms they would most like to alleviate, and standardized questionnaires. Results The most common symptom priorities were: VMS (n = 322), sleep (n = 191), concentration (n = 140), and fatigue (n = 116). In multivariate models, women who chose VMS as their top priority symptom (n = 210) reported significantly greater VMS severity (p = 0.004) and never smoking (p = 0.012), and women who chose sleep as their top priority symptom (n = 100) were more educated (p ≤ 0.001) and had worse sleep quality (p < 0.001). ROC curves identified sleep scale scores that were highly predictive of ranking sleep as a top priority symptom. Conclusions Among women entering an intervention trial for VMS and with relatively low prevalence of depression and anxiety, VMS was the priority symptom for treatment. A card sort may be a valid tool for quickly assessing symptom priorities in clinical practice and research.enPublisher Policymenopausesymptomssleep disturbancesArticle