Health-related quality of life measures for women with urinary incontinence: the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire and the Urogenital Distress Inventory

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a relatively common condition in middle-aged and older women. Traditional measures of symptoms do not adequately capture the impact that UI has on individuals' lives. Further, severe morbidity and mortality are not associated with this condition. Rather, Ul's impact is primarily on the health status and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of women. Generic measures of HRQOL inadequately address the impact of the condition on the day-to-day lives of women with UI. The current paper presents data on two new condition-specific instruments designed to assess the HRQOL of UI in women: the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI) and the Incontinence Impact Questionaire (IIQ). Used in conjunction with one another, these two measures provide detailed information on how UI affects the lives of women. The measures provide data on the more traditional view of HRQOL by assessing the impact of UI on various activities, roles and emotional states (IIQ), as well as data on the less traditional but critical issue of the degree to which symptoms associated with UI are troubling to women (UDI). Data on the reliability, validity and sensitivity to change of these measures demonstrate that they are psychometrically strong. Further, they have been developed for simple, self-administration.