Differential Impact of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms on Generic and Disease-Specific Quality of Life in Men and Women

Abstract

Introduction: We investigated how generic and disease-specific measures differ in estimating the quality of life (QoL) impact of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). Materials and Methods: A total of 172 men and 67 women ≧40 years old who attended the public lectures completed the questionnaire comprising the International Prostate Symptom Score, benign prostatic hyperplasia impact index and SF-36 Health Survey. The multiple regression analysis was performed to evaluate the QoL impact of LUTS. Results: Both storage and voiding symptoms showed significant correlations with disease-specific QoL. Among men, voiding symptom correlated more closely with disease-specific QoL than storage symptom did, and this finding was reversed among women. Storage but not voiding symptoms showed a significant correlation with generic QoL. Among men, storage symptom correlated more closely with mental health than physical health, and the reversed finding was obtained among women. Generic QoL, especially physical health, was significantly influenced by some comorbid diseases, but disease-specific QoL was not. Conclusions: The QoL impact of LUTS was differentially estimated by disease-specific and generic measures with sex differences.

Survey and Risk Factors for Lower Urinary Tract Storage Symptoms in Middle‐Aged and Older Stroke Patients in Urban China

“…In our study, we did not analyze the impact of each risk factor in different genders. Araki et al showed that the impact was gender-specific, 73 which could be the reason why we did not observe consistent results with previous studies for a few disease conditions. It will be interesting to test whether these risk factors for LUTS also play different roles in stroke patients of different genders.…”

Association of lower urinary tract symptoms and OAB severity with quality of life and mental health in China, Taiwan and South Korea: results from a cross-sectional, population-based study

“…The survey population is an important strength of our study. Younger individuals were not included because of previous data showing that LUTS are highly prevalent above the age of 40 [ 2 ] and numerous other epidemiological studies have focused on populations aged ≥40 years [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 12 , 47 ]. Additional strengths include the large number of participants and the use of well-established instruments to determine the presence and severity of LUTS and their effects on QoL and mental health.…”

Clinical guideline for male lower urinary tract symptoms

“…[5][6][7] Research on relative importance of symptoms indicated that storage symptoms exert greater bother on patients' QOL than voiding symptoms. [8][9][10] Contrarily, LUTS have low specificity to underlying disorders and are unreliable for the correct diagnosis, and storage and voiding symptoms do not necessarily reflect disorders of storage and voiding function, respectively. 11 There is weak or almost no correlation between LUTS and other clinical indicators such as prostate volume, urinary flow rate, residual urine volume, or the degree of infravesical (outflow) obstruction.…”