Abstract
A self-administered questionnaire assessing female lower urinary tract symptoms and their impact on quality of life is described and validated, on 56 females in six participating departments. The patients answered two identical questionnaires on separate occasions before treatment. Test-retest reliability of the questionnaire, correlation between the symptoms and their troublesomeness, and the reproducibility of this correlation were assessed. The percentage of mistakes in answers to each of the questions varied from 1.8% to 49.1%, mainly owing to missing answers in the item groups: appliances, sexual function and social activities. Test-retest showed a repeat frequency of 50.0%–91.0% for symptoms and 44.6%–82.1% for trouble. A highly significant positive correlation was found between symptoms and trouble, which was most pronounced for questions concerning pain and incontinence. This correlation was consistent within time. The primary validation of this questionnaire is good. Its relevance as a basis for medical priority and clinical decision making remains to be investigated.
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EDITORIAL COMMENT: The development of well designed methods to track patient outcome to treatment modalities remains paramount. An initial step in this process is the design of validated instruments to measure quality of life and symptom distress. The authors present their initial experience with a constructed self-administered patient questionnaire. While this instrument is still in the testing phase (lacking the necessary sample size and necessary validation), and is far from perfect, it represents the necessary groundwork through which all researchers interested in this field of study must progress. Hopefully others attempting to design similar questionnaires will learn from their experience.
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Bernstein, I., Sejr, T., Able, I. et al. Assessment of lower urinary tract symptoms in women by a self-administered questionnaire: Test-retest reliability. Int Urogynecol J 7, 37–47 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01895104
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01895104