Objectives: To identify all available symptom and quality of life questionnaires for men and women with urinary disorders and assess their psychometric properties.
Methods: We systematically reviewed the literature in Medline using the key words urinary disorders, urinary incontinence, bladder, score, quality of life, questionnaire, and psychometric validation.
Results: The first search using the terms urinary incontinence and quality of life resulted in 1018 Abstracts. Articles mentioning but not measuring quality of life were not investigated. Questionnaires were selected because their psychometric properties were tested and they assessed how much a person was bothered by urinary symptoms or quality of life specific to urinary disorders. The questionnaires were usually gender specific. Their psychometric value was far from uniform, and, for most, responsiveness was not reported.
Conclusion: Few quality of life questionnaires are at an advanced stage of validation to be applied in clinical practice. They need to be shorter, responsive and validated in different populations to permit their easy use.