A quality of life questionnaire was applied which was validated by Patrick e cols.^6,7, in 72 women with urinary incontinence complaints that were referred to the Urination Dysfunction Unit of the Mater Dei Hospital, from the period of January to September, 1999. The questionnaire’s score had a relation to the complaints of the patients and the urodynamic diagnosis.
This life quality questionnaire (annex 1) was composed of 22 items, where the patient classified each one of them in accordance with the scale below:

1 point = when the situation occurred very frequently
2 points = when the situation occurred with a moderate frequency
3 points = when the situation occurred with not much frequency
4 points = when the situation did not apply to the patient

Being so, the higher the score, better the quality of life of the patient.
Besides this, the 22 items of the questionnaire were divided in 4 sub-scales, giving the scores for the limitations of behavior and the action and psychological impact caused by urinary incontinence, besides social embarrassment.
For statistical analysis non-parametric methods were used, the Kruskal Wallis Test, meaning, tests that compare the medium place between variables, placing the patients in a ranking position.
The mean age of the patients of this study was of 51.1 years old, varying from 26 to 85 years old, being that 36% of these women were in post menopause.
Among the main complaints approximately 60% of the patients presented mixed complaints, 30% irritation complaints, 8% stress urinary incontinence and 2% presented obstructive complaints.

In relation to the urodynamic diagnosis, 33% of the patients presented genuine stress urinary incontinence, 31% mixed urinary incontinence, 25% vesicle instability, 10% presented a normal urodynamic test and 4% presented other results.

GRAPHIC 2:

PERCENTAGE OF THE URODYNAMIC RESULTS

For a statistics analysis a patient with an obstructed complaint was excluded.