Patient-completed or symptom-based screening tools for endometriosis: a scoping review

The objective of this review was to evaluate existing patient-completed screening questionnaires and/or symptom-based predictive models with respect to their potential for use as screening tools for endometriosis in adult women. Validated instruments were of particular interest.

We conducted structured searches of PubMed and targeted searches of the gray literature to identify studies reporting on screening instruments used in endometriosis. Studies were screened according to inclusion and exclusion criteria that followed the PICOS (population, intervention, comparison, outcomes, study design) framework.

A total of 16 studies were identified, of which 10 described measures for endometriosis in general, 2 described measures for endometriosis at specific sites, and 4 described measures for deep-infiltrating endometriosis. Only 1 study evaluated a questionnaire that was solely patient-completed. Most measures required physician, imaging, or laboratory assessments in addition to patient-completed questionnaires, and several measures relied on complex scoring. Validation for use as a screening tool in adult women with potential endometriosis was lacking in all studies, as most studies focused on diagnosis versus screening.

This literature review did not identify any fully validated, symptom-based, patient-reported questionnaires for endometriosis screening in adult women.