Objective: Symptomatic benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) affects both the patients' and their wives' quality of life (QOL) due to lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and related events. This study was to investigate the QOL of the wives of symptomatic BPH patients being evaluated for surgical treatment.
Methods: We included 50 couples in this study, in which the husbands were symptomatic BPH patients referred for surgical treatment. The patients were asked to fill in the forms of IPSS and BPH impact index ( BPHII), while their wives investigated with a 7-item questionnaire. The data obtained were subjected to statistic analyses.
Results: LUTS of the BPH patients caused sleep disturbance in 12% of their wives, decreased social activity in 12%, inadequate sexual life in 20%, psychological stress in 38%, fear of prostate cancer in 68%, fear of surgery in 40% and insufficiency for essential tasks in 14%. The decrease in the QOL of the patients' wives was not correlated with the patients' scores on IPSS and BPHII (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: LUTS and related events of symptomatic BPH patients obviously decrease the QOL of their wives, but the severity of the patients' symptoms is not correlated with the decrease of their wives' QOL.