Background: Pediatric lower urinary tract scoring system (PLUTSS) is a questionnaire contains items for assessmentof wetting episodes, voiding frequency and pattern. It is used for screening and evaluation of the responseof children with lower urinary tract symptoms to therapy. We studied the validity and reliability of Persiantranslated version of this questionnaire among Iranian children.
Methods: One hundred and ninety-seven children aged 5-15 years with urinary tract infection, voiding dysfunction,enuresis were enrolled in this study. Thirty-three healthy age-matched children without urinary complaintwere considered as controls. PLUTSS questionnaire was filled out for all children. Sonography was performedto rule out urogenital abnormalities. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and validity of the questionnairewere assessed using Cronbach's alpha, intra-class correlation coefficient, and ANOVA test respectively.ROC curve was used to define cut-point and its validity in discrimination between groups. P-value < 0.05was considered significant.
Results: The means for PLUTSS items were 6.8 (±5.4) for voiding dysfunction, 14.4(±5) for enuresis,10.5(±7.8) for recurrent and 8.9(±6) for single urinary tract infection, and 1.9(±1.8) for controls (p<0.001).Cronbach's alpha for the 14 items of questionnaire was 0.74. The intraclass coefficient correlation for assessingtest-retest reliability was 0.82 (p<0.001). ROC curve showed cut point of 5 for differing case from controls withsensitivity of 97.0 and specificity of 74.9(p<0.001).
Conclusions: Persian translated PLUTSS has a proper validity and reliability as an instrument for screeningchildren with urinary tract symptoms but some questions need to be changed in some way to be understandableby our culture.
Keywords: Pediatrics; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Urination disorders.