Women's attitudes to urodynamics: a questionnaire survey.

OBJECTIVE

To obtain a measure of how well women tolerate urodynamic investigations and to determine how well they thought the test was explained.

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 331 occasions. Questionnaires were returned from 297 women (91.7%) 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.