[Elaboration and validation of a specific quality of life questionnaire for urination urgency in women]

Abstract

Urgent micturition interferes with the quality of life (QoL) of women suffering from this symptom. In order to evaluate this disturbance of quality of life and the benefits of treatment, a self-administered questionnaire, specific to the disorders of urgent micturition in women, was developed from a pre-existing scale (Measurement of Urinary Handicap, MUH). The following developmental methodology was adopted: Generation of a first instrument from the patient's descriptions collected by a multidisciplinary group of clinicians: formulation of questions, regrouping of questions into dimensions, choice of reference period and modalities of response. Content validation and test of comprehension in 20 patients. Transverse pilot study (98 patients) designed to reduce the number of questions and analyse the internal reliability and clinical validity. Reproducibility study. The final questionnaire comprises 24 items grouped into 5 dimensions: activities (8 items), emotional repercussions (5), self-image (5), sleep (3), well-being (3). The relevance of regrouping of the questions in their dimension and of calculation of a global score was confirmed by a principal component analysis and multifactorial analysis. The internal reliability and reproducibility of the scores were satisfactory, with a Cronbach alpha of > 0.70 and an intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.80, respectively. The clinical validity of the questionnaire was verified: the QoL scores of patients became significantly lower as the symptoms became more severe. A specific, reliable and clinically valid questionnaire, expressed in the form of a global score and a profile, was able to be developed. The profile of patients suffering from urgent micturition reflects the repercussions of the disease on the major and specific domains of their QoL. This questionnaire presents the required properties to be used in clinical trials designed to evaluate the effects of treatments on the patients' QoL, as a complement to classical clinical evaluations.