Symptom severity and patient perceptions in overactive bladder: how are they related?
OBJECTIVE
To assess the relationship between symptom severity and patient perceptions in patients with overactive bladder (OAB), as estimated by OAB Symptom Score (OABSS) and patient-reported outcome measures, respectively.


METHODS
Post-hoc analyses were conducted on the existing data from patients with OAB. In addition to the OABSS, patients completed three patient-reported outcome measures, the OAB questionnaire (OAB-q), Patient Perception of Bladder Condition (PPBC) and Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36). Relationships of the OABSS were assessed through correlations with the OAB-q, PPBC and SF-36; all analyses were exploratory.


RESULTS
In all, 194 participants were analysed; the OABSS correlated relatively closely with the PPBC and OAB-q subscales of health-related quality of life (r = 0.36-0.57). There was a particularly good correlation with the OAB-q symptom bother (r = 0.73). However, the OABSS correlated somewhat less with the SF-36 subscales (r = 0.16-0.27). There were fairly close correlations between the OABSS and the OAB-q items; for daytime frequency with 'frequency of urination during daytime hours' (r = 0.44); night-time frequency with 'night-time urination' (r = 0.44), 'waking up at night because you had to urinate' (r = 0.51) and 'awakening from sleep' (r = 0.44); urgency with 'a sudden urge to urinate with little or no warning' (r = 0.65) and 'an uncontrollable urge to urinate' (r = 0.69), urgency incontinence with 'accidental loss of small amounts of urine' (r = 0.74) and 'urine loss associated with a strong desire to urinate' (r = 0.79). All the items except 'awakening from sleep' belonged to the OAB-q symptom bother domain.


CONCLUSIONS
It is possible to roughly but sufficiently infer patient perceptions of bladder condition and symptom bother by measuring symptom severity, as estimated by the OABSS.
Homma
Yukio
Y
Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Japan. homma-uro@umin.ac.jp
Gotoh
Momokazu
M