Flo Health scientists and Mayo Clinic clinicians co-developed a 16-item questionnaire to offer an accurate way for women to measure their perimenopause symptoms

LONDON, Nov. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A study, “Validation of the Perimenopause Symptom Scale (Peri-SS) for Digital Self-Assessment: Psychometric Evaluation Among U.S. Women Aged 35 to 59 years,” published in Menopause, the official journal of The Menopause Society, confirms the reliability of the Perimenopause Symptom Scale (Peri-SS) – a new, game-changing tool developed by scientists at Flo Health, in collaboration with clinicians from the Mayo Clinic, to better and more accurately measure individual perimenopause experience. The simple, 16-item questionnaire can be used in clinical research and integrated into digital platforms to track the various fluctuating symptoms women experience during perimenopause.

Perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause when fluctuating hormone levels can lead to a variety of symptoms like mood and memory changes, hot flashes, sleep disruption or low sex drive. Until now, there have been limited tools for measuring perimenopause symptom burden specifically. For instance, the Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) was developed using postmenopausal populations, and omits prominent symptoms that many perimenopausal women experience, including weight changes, hair loss or digestive issues.¹

Flo Health’s Peri-SS addresses these critical gaps by offering a comprehensive digital self-assessment tool grounded in real-world data and expert clinical validation that enables it to more accurately capture the experience of perimenopause symptoms and severity. Peri-SS serves as the basis for Flo’s “Peri Score”, an in-app feature that evaluates users based on the symptoms they are experiencing and helps them understand the real-life impact of their symptoms.

“We are only now beginning to understand the ways perimenopause can impact a woman’s life, and the validation of the Peri-SS gives us a powerful, research-backed tool to more effectively assess symptom severity. This is a vital step to help women better understand what is happening in their bodies, recognize patterns in their symptoms, and feel more empowered to seek support and care,” said Dr. Liudmila Zhaunova, Flo Health’s Director of Science and one of the lead authors on the paper.

In order to confirm the Peri-SS’s effectiveness, Flo Health conducted a study surveying 1,255 U.S.-based women aged 35 to 59, asking them to measure 16 distinct symptoms across four key domains:

• Sexual: Vaginal dryness, painful sex, low sex drive
• Physical: Digestive issues, hair changes, skin changes, joint/muscle pains, bladder problems, weight changes
• Psychological: Anxiety, sleep difficulties, physical/mental exhaustion, feeling down/sad, irritability
• Vasomotor: Hot flashes, night sweats

Women rate the severity of each symptom over the past 30 days, a timeframe designed to capture symptoms that may fluctuate or occur intermittently, while remaining recent enough for women to recall their experiences reliably.

Respondents of the study evaluated themselves using the Peri-SS, as well as two established questionnaires: MRS and EuroQol 5-Dimension, 5-Level questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L) to compare how the Peri-SS captured symptoms in comparison. Researchers concluded that the Peri-SS met key standards for evaluating psychometric scales and may do a better job of capturing earlier, fluctuating symptoms typical of perimenopause.

Ultimately, the study asserts that Peri-SS is a better fit for perimenopausal women because it takes into consideration a wider spectrum of perimenopause symptoms while being simple and user-friendly.

About Flo Health
Flo Health is the #1 women’s health app worldwide. In 2024, Flo became the first European femtech unicorn following an investment from General Atlantic and now supports 80 million monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide. Powered by a network of 100+ medical experts, Flo guides women through every stage of their health journey – from menstruation to conception, pregnancy, and perimenopause – offering curated cycle and ovulation tracking, personalized health insights, daily educational content, and a private community for users to share questions or concerns. A leader in privacy and security, Flo Health’s Anonymous Mode feature was recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions 2023 and also named a finalist for Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards as part of the company’s commitment to privacy.

For more information, please visit https://flo.health.

PR contacts
Samantha Wannemacher
Flo Health
s_wannemacher@flo.health 

Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis
flo@ssmandl.com

¹ Aras SG, Grant AD, Konhilas JP. Clustering of > 145,000 symptom logs reveals distinct pre, peri, and menopausal phenotypes. Sci Rep. 2025;15:640. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-84208-3

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SOURCE Flo Health Inc.