Reliability of Patient Reported "Dry" Status to Define Success after an Anti-Incontinence Surgery

We compared the patient self reported assessment of dryness after an anti-incontinence procedure in women with 3 simple, office based questionnaire items.

Following institutional review board approval electronic medical records of non-neurogenic women who underwent anterior vaginal wall suspension alone for stress urinary incontinence associated with early stage anterior compartment prolapse were reviewed. Using last visit assessment, responses to Urogenital Distress Inventory-short form question 3 related to stress urinary incontinence, global quality of life score using visual analog scale and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire-short form question 7 related to frustration were compared to self reported dry (no/rare leakage) status. Success (dry status) was specifically compared to Urogenital Distress Inventory-short form question 3 response 0 (none) or 1 (rarely), quality of life score of 3 or lower (scale 0-10) and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire-short form question 7 response 0 (not at all) or 1 (slightly).

From 1996 to 2017, 193 of 397 women were included. Of those self reported dry 160 (83%) replied no/rare urine leakage, 148 (77%) reported quality of life of 3 or lower and 178 (92%) replied no or slight frustration. Urogenital Distress Inventory-short form question 3 score 0 was significantly associated with Incontinence Impact Questionnaire-short form #7 scores 0-1 (p=0.0145) and quality of life scores 0-3 (p <0.0001).

In this study using native tissue repair to correct stress urinary incontinence self-reported dry status compared adequately to responses to relevant questions of validated questionnaires. These easily queried outcome measures via phone or office visits could strengthen the quality of stress outcome measure data in our literature.