Abstract
Study design
This is a descriptive psychometrics study.
Objectives
Neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction (NLUTD), also called Neurogenic Bladder (NB), is a common and disruptive condition in a variety of neurologic diagnoses. Our team developed patient-centered instruments, Urinary Symptom Questionnaires for people with neurogenic bladder (USQNB), specific to people with NLUTD who manage their bladders with intermittent catheterization (IC), indwelling catheters (IDC), or who void (V). This article reports evidence of reliability of the IDC and V instruments.
Setting
Online surveys completed by individuals in the United States with NLUTD due to spinal cord injury (SCI), or multiple sclerosis (MS) who manage their bladder with IDC (SCI, n = 306), or by voiding (SCI, n = 103; MS, n = 383).
Methods
Reliability estimates were based on endorsement of the items on the USQNB-IDC and USQNB-V. Reliability evidence was representativeness of these symptoms for a national sample (by determining if endorsement > 10%); internal consistency estimates (by Cronbach’s alpha and item correlation coefficient, ICC); and interrelatedness of the items (by inferred Bayesian network, BN). We also tested whether a one-factor conceptualization of “urinary symptoms in NLUTD” was supportable for either instrument.
Results
All items were endorsed by >20% of our samples. Urine quality symptoms tended to be the most commonly endorsed on both instruments. Cronbach’s alpha and ICC estimates were high (>0.74), but not suggestive of redundancy. BNs showed interpretable associations among the items, and did not discover uninterpretable or unexpected associations. Neither instrument fit a one-factor model, as expected.
Conclusions
The USQNB-IDC and USQNB-V instruments show sufficient, multidimensional reliability for implementation and further study.
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Data availability
Data supporting the results reported in the article can be found in Files section of the Open Science Framework Project page, https://osf.io/pfdje/.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of MMS (data curation, investigation, and acquisition of funding).
Funding
Two funders supported this work: USQNB-V: supported by NIDILRR grant #90IF0121 and USQNB-IDC: supported by Craig H Neilsen Foundation grant # 385077.
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RET: conceptualization, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, supervision, validation, visualization, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing; JKF: formal analysis, validation, visualization, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing; FY: formal analysis, methodology, validation, visualization, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing.; AKR: data curation, resources, and writing—review and editing; IHL: project administration, resources, acquisition of funding, and writing—review and editing; and SLG: funding acquisition, investigation, project administration, resources, supervision, writing—review and editing.
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Tractenberg, R.E., Frost, J.K., Yumoto, F. et al. Reliability of the Urinary Symptom Questionnaires for people with neurogenic bladder (USQNB) who void or use indwelling catheters. Spinal Cord 59, 939–947 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41393-021-00665-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41393-021-00665-x
