Introduction: The AUA symptom score (AUA-SS) is a validated symptom index for men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Its Cronbach’s alpha, the index for internal consistency, is 0.86. However, the AUA-SS is broadly used to assess both women and men with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) not exclusive to BPH. We seek to study the validity of the AUA-SS to assess varied LUTS in men and women.
Methods: Deidentified data from the NIH/NIDDK-sponsored Symptoms of Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction Research Network (LURN) was obtained from the NIDDK repository. These include data for men and women with LUTS of varied etiology seeking care at six US centers and their corresponding AUA-SS. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated.
Results: A total of n=589 (53%) females and n=525 (47%) males were included in this multicenter dataset. In this population, men demonstrated more severe voiding phase symptoms than women (men 6.92 vs. women 4.8, p<0.01). Conversely, women exhibited more storage phase symptoms than men (men 7.91 vs. women 7.95, p<0.001). Cronbach’s Alpha was calculated for men and women, respectively: total AUA-SS 0.76 and 0.71; AUA-SS voiding subscale 0.78 and 0.77; AUA-SS storage subscale 0.58 and 0.46.
Conclusions: The Cronbach’s alpha for using AUA-SS to assess storage dysfunction in men and women is poor ( <0.7). Caution should be used by clinicians in non-validated use of the AUA-SS, particularly for female storage dysfunction.
.jpg)
.jpg)
