Validation of a simple patient questionnaire to assist self-detection of overactive bladder. A study in general practice.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and validate a simple patient questionnaire for the detection of overactive bladder (OAB).

DESIGN

An open, non-randomized multicentre study.

SETTING

A pilot study (n = 133) was conducted to bring forward five questions from initially 14 questions, for detection of OAB. These five questions were subject to further validation in the main study (n =520).

SUBJECTS: 531 adults responding to a newspaper advertisement regarding symptoms of OAB and patients seeing a physician for other reasons were attending 28 general practitioners.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Agreement rate, sensitivity, and specificity.

RESULTS

The agreement rate between the patients' own diagnosis based on the patient questionnaire, and the physicians' diagnosis based on medical history, urine analysis, and micturition chart, was 0.78 (kappa =0.89). Sensitivity and specificity were 0.98 and 0.90, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The validated questionnaire may become a useful tool to decide whether a patient has overactive bladder. The questionnaire corresponds well with the physicians' diagnosis.