Background:

A symptom questionnaire must be able to detect minimal changes after treatment to be clinically useful.

Aim:

To evaluate the responsiveness of the Spanish-Chilean version of the ICIQ-SF questionnaire after medical and surgical procedures for the treatment of urinary incontinence (UI) in women consulting at a public Chilean Hospital.

Material and Methods:

Data of 124 women aged 59 ± 10 years who were treated for UI and in whom ICIQ-SF questionnaire was applied in two opportunities (before and after medical or surgical treatment), was analyzed. The sign test for paired samples was used to compare the response of each item of the questionnaire. Responsiveness of the total severity score for UI was assessed by changes of slopes estimated by Generalized Estimating Equations. Slopes of change for every type of treatment were also compared.

Results:

Sixty two percent of the women underwent surgical treatment. The slope of the total severity score for medical treatment was -4.4 (p-value < 0.001 for change) and 12.6 (p-value < 0.001 for change) for surgical treatment. Changes in surgical treatment were significantly higher than those of medical treatment (p-value < 0.001).

Conclusions:

The Spanish-Chilean version of the ICIQ-SF questionnaire was able to detect changes as a result of surgical and medical treatment for urinary incontinence in the study population, fulfilling the validity of responsiveness criterion.