Development Of Quality Of Life Scale For Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Patients

Objective: To develop a specific quality of life(QOL) scale for Chinese benign prostatic hyperplasia(BPH) patients with the guidance of the research of medical treatment outcome assessment system for diseases of the old people, one of the National Key Technologies R&D Programs in the IOth five-year plan.Methods: The theory construction was put forward on the base of quality of life definition from WHO. Generic and BPH-specific quality of life scales had been extensively consulted and ideas and suggestions from nominal group had been adapted before the item pool formed. With the stratified random sampling method, 256 BPH patients had been recruited in the study . Six methods had been used in item analysing, such as t-test, correlation analysis, factor analysis and so on. Items reserved form the Quality of Life Scale for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Patients-Prior Test Version(BPHQLS).The reliability and validity of the scale were also tested.Results: 74 of 93 items were retained. It was consistent with the theory construction that BPHQLS included five domains: disease, physical, social, psychological and satisfaction, while the disease domain made up of the BPH-specific sub-scale and the other four domains formed the generic sub-scale for men older than 50 years. The test-retest correlation coefficient ,Cronbach's a coefficient and split-half reliability coefficient of BPHQLS were 0.912,0.966,0.793. 13 common factors were extracted and the cumulative variance was 68.359%. The largest common factor who explained 29.91% of total variance was about the incontinent symptoms and the bother due to lower urinary tract symptoms. The domain-total correlations of BPHQLS were 0.702?.855. The scale's correlations with SF-36, 1PSS symptom score, 1PSS quality of life scoreand a published BPH-specific quality of life scale were 0.784,0.493,0.462 and 0.762 respectively. The correlations of BPHQLS disease domain score with IPSS symptom score and IPSS quality of life score were 0.700 and 0.698. BPHQLS could well discriminate the following kinds of persons: 1) BPH patients or not; 2) patients with different degree of symptoms; 3) in-patients, out-patients and community patients; 4) patients with or without urethral catheters; 5) patients with different age.Conclusions: BPHQLS is reliable, valid and sensitive. The scale interpretes the connotation of BPH patients'quality of life comprehensively, detailedly and accurately. It can be used as the supplement of clinical indexes to evaluate the curative effect of BPH.