The purpose of this stu
dy was to create symptom in
dexes, that is scores
derive
d from questionnaires to accurately an
d efficiently measure symptoms of interstitial cystitis/bla
dder pain syn
drome an
d chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syn
drome, collectively referre
d to as urological chronic pelvic pain syn
dromes. We create
d these in
dexes empirically by investigating the structure of symptoms using exploratory factor analysis.
d="absSec_2">Materials and Methods
d="abspara0015">As part of the MAPP (Multi-Disciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain) Research Network 424 participants completed questionnaires, including GUPI (Genitourinary Pain Index), ICSI (Interstitial Cystitis Symptom Index) and ICPI (Interstitial Cystitis Problem Index). Individual items from questionnaires about bladder and pain symptoms were evaluated by principal component and exploratory factor analyses to identify indexes with fewer questions to comprehensively quantify symptom severity. Additional analyses included correlating symptom indexes with symptoms of depression, which is a known comorbidity of patients with pelvic pain.
d="absSec_3">Results and Conclusions
d="abspara0020">Exploratory factor analyses suggested that the 2 factors pain severity and urinary severity provided the best psychometric description of items in GUPI, ICSI and ICPI. These factors were used to create 2 symptom indexes for pain and urinary symptoms. Pain, but not urinary symptoms, was associated with symptoms of depression on multiple regression analysis, suggesting that these symptoms may impact patients with urological chronic pelvic pain syndromes differently (B ± SE for pain severity = 0.24 ± 0.04, 95% CI 0.16–0.32, β = 0.32, p <0.001). Our results suggest that pain and urinary symptoms should be assessed separately rather than combined into 1 total score. Total scores that combine the separate factors of pain and urinary symptoms into 1 score may be limited for clinical and research purposes.