Differential impact of lower urinary tract symptoms on generic and disease-specific quality of life in men and women

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. Copyright (c) 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.