Abstract

Background: Assessing the quality of life in older adults with urinary incontinence (UI) can help to identify critical points that improve their living conditions. The Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6), the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ-7) in its short version and the Incontinence Severity Index questionnaire (ISI) need to be validated to evaluate the quality of life in elderly women with UI from nursing homes of Mexico.

Methods: Women > 60 years (n = 317) from nursing homes in Guadalajara, Mexico, were included. Patients with neurological, cognitive, visual, and illiterate impairments were excluded. The participants were interviewed to gather their general data, and Spanish versions of the IIQ-7, the Mexican adaptation UDI-6, and the ISI were applied. The medians and confidence intervals (CI) of the scores was obtained. Spearman's correlation with questionnaires UDI-6 and IIQ-7 was performed by ISI level and among women who used diapers and women who did not use diapers. Internal consistency analysis was obtained with Cronbach's α from UDI-6, IIQ-7 and ISI. IBM-SPSS version 25 was used.

Results: The very severe ISI was related to highest scores of UDI-6 (59.9 ± 16.3) and IIQ-7 (69.12 ± 20.27.5) and the slight level ISI with lowscores UDI-6 (24.4 ± 12.9) and IIQ-7 (18.05 ± 17.44). An internal consistency (Cronbach's α) was for the IIQ-7, UDI-6 and ISI values of 0.866, 0.745, and 0.596, respectively. Spearman's correlation between UDI-6 and IIQ-7 showed a rho of 0.639 (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion: The Mexican Spanish Adaptation of the UDI-6 and IIQ-7 (short form) showed good reliability in elderly women from nursing homes in Mexico.