Lower urinary tract symptoms of men seeking medical care--comparison of symptoms found in the clinical setting and in a community study.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate which lower urinary tract symptoms were most influential in causing men to seek medical care.


METHODS
We evaluated the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and quality-of-life (QOL) score of 235 outpatients having lower urinary tract symptoms and 242 participants in a community-based study of Japanese men aged 50 to 79 years old.


RESULTS
Although the proportion of outpatients in the severe IPSS category (IPSS 20 to 35) was greater than that in the participants of the community-based study in each age decade, the proportion in the moderate IPSS category (IPSS 8 to 19) in both groups overlapped each other. On the other hand, the distribution of QOL scores was considerably different, with only a small portion of overlap in each age decade. Although scores for both voiding symptoms (incomplete emptying, intermittency, weak stream, and hesitancy) and storage symptoms (increased frequency, urgency, and nocturia) were significantly greater in outpatients than in study participants in each age decade, the difference was more obvious for voiding symptoms than for storage symptoms.


CONCLUSIONS
The QOL score appeared to show more pronounced differences between men in a clinic setting and those in a community setting than the IPSS category. Voiding symptoms may affect medical care-seeking behavior through QOL impairment in Japanese men.
Masumori
Naoya
N
Department of Urology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
Tanaka
Yoshinori
Y
Takahashi
Atsushi
A
Itoh
Naoki
N
Ogura
Hiroshi
H
Furuya
Seiji
S
Tsukamoto
Taiji
T
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010045:Outpatients; D011469:Prostatic Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D011788:Quality of Life; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014555:Urination Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*