Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Japanese version of the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form (ICIQ-SF).
Methods: Two study samples of 180 patients with urinary incontinence were used for this psychometric evaluation. Analyses were carried out to examine the instrument's reliability and validity, as well as its responsiveness to change.
Results: For the ICIQ-SF items and total scores, there was no particular floor or ceiling effect. The internal consistency was sufficiently high, with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.78. In the analysis of test-retest reliability, high correlations were observed, with Kappa coefficients of 0.61 for item 1 and 0.62 for item 2, and with intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.90 for item 3 and 0.91 for the total score. For the concurrent validity, the ICIQ-SF scores were moderately to highly correlated with most of the King's Health Questionnaire (KHQ) subscales. When the severity groups, divided in quartiles, were compared with respect to the 1-h pad test and the number of daily incontinence episodes, there seemed to be linear trends in most of the ICIQ-SF scores. For responsiveness, changes in the ICIQ-SF after treatment demonstrated statistically significant correlations of more than 0.5 with changes in some of the KHQ subscale scores. All of the ICIQ-SF items and total scores significantly decreased after treatment.
Conclusions: The Japanese version of the ICIQ-SF is a reliable, valid and responsive measure that performs well among patients with urinary incontinence.