Reliability and validity of two measures of toileting skills in frail older women without dementia

Urinary incontinence (UI) affects 43% of frail, community-dwelling older women and threatens their independence. For these women, remaining continent depends on their ability to toilet. Treatments should include improving toileting skills. However, reliable and valid measures of toileting skills are not available to evaluate treatment efforts in this population. The current cross-sectional study of 24 frail older women (average age = 87 years) examines the reliability and concurrent validity of the Performance Oriented Timed Toileting Instrument (POTTI) and self-reported Minnesota Toileting Skills Questionnaire (MTSQ). The POTTI demonstrated strong interrater reliability (0.97) and the MTSQ demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.82). Both measures had statistically significant correlations with frailty, physical performance, UI-related quality of life, and UI self-efficacy. Both instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties and show promise as outcome measures for UI clinical trials. Further work is needed to establish their responsiveness to change and minimum clinically important difference values. Copyright