title: Stress urinary incontinence and quality of life: a reliability study of a condition-specific instrument in paper and web-based versions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Quality of life is an important outcome measure in studies of urinary incontinence. Electronic collection of data has several advantages. We examined the reliability of the Swedish version of the highly recommended condition-specific quality of life questionnaire International Consultation on Incontinence Modular Questionnaire-Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Quality of Life (ICIQ-LUTSqol), in paper and web-based formats in women with stress urinary incontinence.
  
  
  METHODS
  Women aged 18-70 years, with stress urinary incontinence at least once weekly, were recruited via the project's website and answered the ICIQ-LUTSqol questionnaire. Respondents completed either the paper version twice (n = 78), or paper and web-based versions once each (n = 54). The ICIQ validation protocol was followed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean interval between answers was 18.1 (SD = 3.1) days in the paper versus paper setting and 15.0 (SD = 7.8) days in the paper versus web-based setting. Internal consistency was excellent, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.87 for the paper version and 0.86 for the web-based version. There was a high degree of agreement of overall scores with intraclass correlations in the paper versus paper and paper versus web-based settings: 0.95 (P < 0.001) and 0.92 (P < 0.001), respectively. The mean of each individual item's weighted kappa value was 0.61 in both settings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The questionnaire is reliable in women with stress urinary incontinence, and it can be used in either a paper or a web-based version.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. malin.sjostrom@jll.se
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sjöström
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stenlund
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Umefjord
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Samuelsson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014550:Urinary Incontinence, Stress / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult