Usage of International Continence Society standardized terminology: A bibliometric and questionnaire study

We aimed to assess the impact of the 2002 International Continence Society (ICS) standardization report on usage of lower urinary tract terminology in research publications, and compare published usage with awareness of standardized terminology among practicing clinicians.

We searched articles indexed in the Scopus database for pairs of words or phrases, where one was introduced by the 2002 report, making the other obsolete or discouraged. We calculated frequencies of publications using each word or phrase by year. We calculated odds ratios and relative risks for usage of each item of 2002 terminology or its obsolete counterpart, comparing the periods 1996-2002 and 2003-2009. We distributed an email questionnaire to members of the British Society of Urogynecologists (BSUG), asking them to identify which items from a list of terms were current standardized or obsolete terminology.

Bibliometric trends varied markedly by word pair. The terms "genuine stress incontinence," "detrusor hyperreflexia," and "detrusor instability" became obsolete as recommended by the 2002 report, with a delay of 2-3 years. However, for terms with wider usage beyond the continence field, including "vulvodynia" and "dysuria," there was no significant adoption of the suggested replacements. Members of BSUG were familiar only with those items of standardized terminology that had been widely used in the literature.

The 2002 ICS standardization report was associated with significant shifts in usage of some items of terminology. ICS and IUGA should redouble efforts to raise awareness of the 2009 standardization report.