Role of Incontinence Severity Index in Evaluating Severity and Impact of Treatment Of Stress Urinary Incontinence

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a common ailment in affecting quality of life. This study was performed to see role of incontinence severity index (ISI) in evaluating severity of SUI and to see the impact of treatment of SUI.

A total of 40 women with the diagnosis of SUI on history and clinical examination were enrolled. ISI was calculated on all the women before treatment. All women were treated with either conservative treatment (pelvic floor exercises, life style modification, and duloxetine therapy) (4, 10%) or Burch's colposuspension (18, 45%) or tension-free obturator tape (18, 45%) as per clinical situation after discussion with patients. ISI was again calculated 6 months after treatment.

Mean age, parity, body mass index in the study were 41.60 years, 2.73, and 24.2 kg/m², respectively. All 40 (100%) patients had SUI with the mean duration of symptoms being 4.04 years. A total of 11 (27.5%) had moderate SUI (ISI 3-6), while 24 (60%) had severe SUI (ISI 8-9), while 5 (12.5%) had very severe SUI (ISI 12). Range of pretreatment ISI was 3-12 with mean being 8.8 ± 3.2. Posttreatment ISI reduced significantly with range of 1-4 and mean of 1.3 ± 0.4 (P < 0.001). The reduction was significant for all the groups, but there was no significant difference in efficacy of three treatment groups. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS IBM Version 2-1-0 using Chi-square test, Fisher's Extract test, and ANOVA test as appropriate.

ISI is a useful modality to evaluate the severity of SUI and to see the impact of treatment modalities on SUI.