Validation of a global pelvic floor symptom bother questionnaire.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: This study aimed to validate a symptom questionnaire to assess presence and patient bother as related to common pelvic floor disorders.

METHODS

The validation of the Pelvic Floor Bother Questionnaire (PFBQ) included evaluation of internal reliability, test-retest reliability, and validity of the items.

RESULTS

A total of 141 patients with mean age of 61.8 +/- 13.2 were included in the study. Twenty-four percent of patients complained of stress urinary incontinence, 14.9% mixed incontinence, 14.9% urge incontinence, 10% fecal incontinence, 5.7% obstructed defecation, 28.4% pelvic organ prolapse, and 2.1% dyspareunia. The PFBQ demonstrated good reliability (alpha = 0.61-0.74; ICC = 0.94). There was a strong agreement beyond chance observed for each question (k = 0.77-0.91). PFBQ correlated with stage of prolapse (rho = 0.73, p < 0.0001), number of urinary and fecal incontinence episodes (rho = 0.81, p < 0.0001; rho = 0.54, p < 0.0001), and obstructed defecation (rho = 0.55, p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

The PFBQ is a useful tool that can be easily used for identification and severity or bother assessment of various pelvic floor symptoms.