Validity of PinQ in Turkish children and quality of life in children with urinary incontinence and parents

Aim: Urinary incontinence is a behaviour of daytime and/or nighttime urinary leakage inchildren older than five years and it is frequent problem of childhood. Urinary incontinence isa child health problem that affect both the child and the family in psychological and socialaspect and that leads to a decrease in quality of life of the child and his caregiver. There arefew studies that evaluate quality of life in children with urinary incontinence. This studyinvestigated; 1. validity and reliability of PinQ (Pediatric Continence Specific Quality of lifeMeasurement); 2. quality of life in children with urinary incontinence and parents caring forchildren with urinary incontinence; and 3. the factors that minfluence this quality of life.Material and Methods: The study included 94 children (58 male, 36 female) with urinaryincontinence and healthy 30 children as the control group aged 5-17 years. PinQ questionnaireand the proxy questionnaire was adapted into Turkish. PinQ and KINDL were applied to thechildren with urinary incontinence at 0. month, 3. month and 6. month while PinQ Proxy andWHOQOL questionnaires were applied to the parents. Validity and reliability of the PinQquestionnaire was evaluated. Moreover, IBSS (dysfunctıonal voiding and incontinencescoring system) was applied to the patients to evaluate for the influence of disease severity onquality of life and the sensitivity of PinQ to disease severity.Results: Mean total scores of the Turksih version of PinQ for 0., 3. and 6. month follow upswere calculated as: 34 , 18,7 and 15,3 in boys and 31, 21,1 and 18,6 in girls respectively.Cronbach alpha values for the internal consistency of the questionaire were 0,50 for 0.month, 0,75 for 3. month and 0,85 for 6. month in the external dimension while they were0,76 for 0. month, 0,80 for 3. month and 0,95 for 6. month in the internal dimension. Therewas correlation between child and proxy questionnaire scores. Questionnaire scores werehighly sensitive to the changes in IBSS scores (criterion validity). PinQ Turkish version wasnot significantly related with age, gender and incontinence type. With the KINDLquestionnaire, it was demonstrated that quality of life is sifnificantly impaired in children withincontinence compared to the control cases especially in the self esteem domain. Evaluationthe impact on quality of life revealed that PinQ and KINDL were correlated. No significantdifference was detected between parents of disease and control groups.Conclusion: The Turkish version of the Pediatric İncontinence Questionaire is a valid andreliable measure to assess health related quality of life child with urinary incontinence.Quality of life of children with urinary inconctinence decreases under the influence of diseaseseverity. The domain that is most severily influenced by urinary incontinence in children is?self esteem?. Quality of life is more adversely influenced in children with daytime urinaryincontinence compared to the ones with nightime incontinence.Key words: Quality of life, urinary incontinence, PinQ