Constitution and Validation of a New Symptom Assessment Tool for Overactive Bladder: Marmara Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (M-OBQ)

Abstract

Objective The aim of this study is to constitute and validate a symptom questionnaire to be used in the diagnosis and follow up of patients with OAB that complies with the specific needs of the Turkish society and that allows the assessment of both disease symptoms and their effects on quality of life. Materials and Methods A total of 78 OAB patients and 90 control patients were included in this study between January 2007 and June 2007. All included patients underwent urine analysis/culture, blood creatinine levels, 3-day voiding dairy, urinary ultrasonography and plain abdominal graphy evaluations. Results Among 168 patients included 99 (58, 95) were males and 69 (41,1%) were females. Mean age was 47,3 (±17, 2) years. Cronbach alpha value which is a determinant of internal consistency was 0.92 for M-OAB questionnaire. The Spearman correlation co- efficient for total score was found to be 0.98 (p=0.001) in the test- retest analysis. The highest sensitivity (97%) and specificity (94%) values for the M-OAB questionnaire to make a diagnosis of OAB were obtained with a cut off value of 12.5 for the total score. Conclusion This study shows the development of a reliable and valid OAB specific symptom and quality of assessment tool that is short and easily applicable in the daily clinical practice. This questionnaire can provide the clinicians with practical comfort and a standardized quantification of the patient symptoms.

Keywords

• Overactive bladder
• symptom questionnaire
• validation
• quality of life