Discrepancies in perception of urinary incontinence between patient and physician after robotic radical prostatectomy.
OBJECTIVE
Reported incidence of urinary incontinence after a radical prostatectomy (RP) varies between studies. This may be due not only to the definition of incontinence applied, but also how the information is acquired. We investigated the differences in perception of post robot-assisted laparoscopic RP (RALP) urinary incontinence acquired through doctor interviews and patient-reported questionnaires.


METHODS
Of 238 consecutive men who underwent RALP by a single surgeon between July 2005 and February 2008, we evaluated 66 men using the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire (ICIQ) at various time points after surgery. Each patient's ICIQ results were considered to be the patient's perceptions of urinary incontinence. The physician at the same time directly interviewed the patients about the number of pads used and considered complete continence to be equivalent to the use of no pads or safety liners.


RESULTS
Of the 66 patients, the physician reported that 34 (51.5%) had obtained complete continence. However, analysis of the questionnaires of these 34 patients revealed that only 5 (14.7%) patients reported that they never leaked during the past 4 weeks. Most patients (11 patients, 32.4%) who did not use any pad did in fact reported leakage of a small or moderate amount of urine about once a day.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that there are discrepancies in the perception of urinary incontinence between doctor and patient after RALP. Nonuse of pads is not equivalent to obtaining complete urinary continence. Therefore, the number of pads used is not a good measure to determine the status of complete urinary continence.
Lee
Seung Ryeol
SR
Department of Urology, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University, Seongnam, Korea.
Kim
Hong Wook
HW
Lee
Jae Won
JW
Jeong
Woo Ju
WJ
Rha
Koon Ho
KH
Kim
Jang Hwan
JH
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001706:Biopsy; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011468:Prostatectomy / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods; D012371:Robotics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000209:etiology*