Introduction and hypothesis: Overactive bladder (OAB) and mixed urinary incontinence (MUI) are significant problems worldwide. Their broad definition makes them difficult to diagnose; therefore, specialists need a tool to confirm diagnosis. The Overactive Bladder Symptom Score (OABSS) is used in the objective diagnosis of OAB. We aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of OABSS for patients in Poland suffering from OAB and MUI and to correlate it with UDI-6 and IIQ-7.
Methods: A total of 824 women suffering from urinary incontinence (UI) aged between 18 and 75 years were included. SUI (n = 290); OAB (n = 285) and MUI (n = 249) were confirmed by medical history and urodynamic study. Of the subjects, 821 women completed the Polish version of OABSS on two separate visits: weeks 0 and 2. In addition, they undertook UDI-6 and IIQ-7 during Week 2. The Cronbach's alpha (α) was used to estimate the internal consistency. Scores were compared using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
Results: We observed statistically significant differences (p < 0.0005) between mean scores of OABSS among patients from the study groups OAB-SUI and MUI-SUI. We did not observe statistically significant differences between patients from the MUI and OAB groups (p > 0.11). Analysis also did not show statistically significant differences between visits. The internal consistency was very good: α = 0.89 (SUI); = 0.9 (OAB); = 0.82 (MUI). In all groups, test-retest reliability was excellent; ICC was >0.99.
Conclusions: The Polish version of the OABSS is a reliable tool for females suffering from UI. However, OABSS does not distinguish patients with MUI from patients with OAB.
Keywords: Mixed urinary incontinence; Overactive Bladder Symptom Score; Overactive bladder; Validation.