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Women's attitudes to urodynamics: a questionnaire survey
Author(s) -
Gorton Emma,
Stanton Stuart
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.1999.tb08408.x
Subject(s) - distressing , medicine , distress , feeling , test (biology) , anxiety , urodynamic testing , referral , physical therapy , clinical psychology , family medicine , psychiatry , psychology , surgery , urinary incontinence , social psychology , paleontology , chemistry , biology
Objective To obtain a measure of how well women tolerate urodynamic investigations and to determine Design Prospective questionnaire survey Setting A teaching hospital tertiary referral centre urodynamic laboratory. Participants Three hundred and twenty‐four women attending for urodynamic investigations on 33 1 occasions. Questionnaires were returned from 297 women (9 1.7%) with six women returning two questionnaires. Results Urodynamic investigations were well tolerated by most women, with 45% feeling that the procedure was not as bad as they expected. Moderate or severe anxiety about the test was experienced by 42% and 40% felt moderately or severely embarrassed. Pain was noted by 27% of women during investigation, and by 13% after investigation. Overall distress from the procedure was less in older women and in those who had been referred from a specialist urogynaecology clinic. Distress was higher when difficulties were encountered during the investigation and in women who had investigations other than a standard cystometrogram. Women were likely to find the test less distressing when they felt they had been given adequate information about the test. Conclusions Although urodynamic investigations are generally well tolerated, there is a significant minority of women who find the test embarrassing, painful and distressing. how well they thought the test was explained.