Validation of a self-administered urological questionnaire.

Self-administered questionnaires are widely used in clinical practice and as an aid to research. However, their reliability as a means of eliciting symptoms of urological disease has not been established. A questionnaire designed to elicit symptoms of urological disease was validated in 120 patients (36 out-patients, 27 in-patients and 57 community patients). All found the questionnaire acceptable and the completion rate was 99%. Only 3 of 648 answers were changed on the test-retest analysis. Consistency, as assessed by a comparison of responses by clinician and patient, was satisfactory in 11 of 15 questions relating to urological symptoms and the questionnaire successfully identified a high risk group of patients from the community requiring further urological evaluation. The need to include results of a preliminary validation study when reporting results obtained by a self-administered questionnaire is emphasised.