Disease Burden of Overactive Bladder

Overactive bladder (OAB) is characterised by the storage symptoms of urgency, with or without urge incontinence, and usually with urinary frequency and nocturia. OAB is a common condition that affects people of all ages within society. It has an estimated prevalence of 16% and is known to adversely affect quality of life (QOL).

Assessment of the QOL of patients is important to understanding both the burden of disease and improvement after treatment. In clinical practice, the physician’s assessment of the disease burden of OAB has been shown to be inaccurate and non-reproducible. Psychometrically robust self-completion questionnaires provide a valid, reproducible and rapid assessment of patient-reported disease impact that can elicit the impact of symptoms, and they are also useful for the evaluation of the efficacy of an intervention.

Many different questionnaires have been developed to assess the QOL impact of OAB. Generic instruments measure very broad aspects of health and are suitable for a wide range of patient groups and general population screening. They can be applied to patients with any medical condition and provide a measure of morbidity but are less sensitive to clinically relevant change in conditions such as OAB. Condition-specific questionnaires offer greater sensitivity and responsiveness to change in the assessment of QOL of specific patient groups. Single-item global assessment questionnaires are useful in conditions such as OAB that have multiple and varied symptoms, and reflect an individual’s needs, concerns and values. Patient-derived outcome measures are used in real-world clinical practice, clinical trials, health economic research and healthcare planning.