Construction of a Short Form BPH Specific Health Related Quality of Life Scale: Reliablility and Validity Tests / 대한비뇨기과학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To construct and validate the short-form benign prostatic hypertropy (BPH) health-related quality-of-life (HRQL) questionnaire which is more practical in use and as informative as the 35-item standard form questionnaire previously validated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: First the 9 items for the short form questionnaire were selected from the 35-item standard form questionnaire that includes lower urinary tract symptom (LUTS) related, physical, emotional, general helth percepton, sexual domains by the experts. The developed short form questions were divided into two domains; physical and emotional. This short form questionnaire was tested for reliablity, and validity in a total of 197 men who visited the urology clinics of the eight university medical centers in Korea with LUTS. RESULTS: The short form questionnaire was practical in use (completion rate; 98%, duration of completion at inclusion; 5.19min), and the level of comprehension was not affected by age or degree of education. On the test-retest reliability, high correlations (r=0.49-0.78) and high Cronbach's alpha (>0.745) of two domains were observed, supporting the satisfactory internal consistency, reliability. As the validity, the standard form and short form questionnaire were highly correlated (r=0.52-0.76) and the significant difference were noted in the domain sums and total sum regarding the LUTS severity (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The newly constructed short form questionnaire is good for assessment BPH HRQL including patients' perceived physical, and emotional status easy to administer, accurate, reproducible and responsive to change according to symptom severity. This questionnaire can be used in patients with LUTS practically and offer the valuable clinical information to the physician.