PHOENIX, AZ USA (UroToday.com) - Dr. Jennifer Anger and her team conducted patient focus groups and expert interviews to better understand perspectives on different symptoms between OAB-wet and OAB-dry.
She recruited patients in female general urology clinics that were identified by ICD-9 code OAB symptoms. Patients excluded included those with pelvic pain/IC, mixed stress and urge UI, POP or recent pelvic surgery. They reviewed the medical records to ensure that patients in the OAB-dry group had no history of urge UI. With the patients identified from their records, five focus group sessions, totaling 33 patients (3-OAB wet and 2-OAB dry groups), were conducted. Non-clinician moderators conducted these focus groups and participants were asked questions concerning perception of OAB symptoms, treatments and outcomes. Concurrently, the investigators interviewed experts in the field who were asked to describe their views on OAB-wet and OAB-dry. Findings from the extensive chart review were that it was very difficult to identify and differentiate pure OAB-dry patients from OAB-dry patients as women with OAB-dry shared knowledge that they would leak if a toilet was not available and that the pure OAB-dry women wore light protective pads. There were very few patients with no history of leakage. However, the expert interviews revealed the belief that OAB-dry may be an early model form of OAB-wet.
The conclusions were interesting from this group because the investigators felt that the findings shed light on problems with defining OAB. From these interviews in both the focus groups and the experts, researchers concluded that OAB-dry may really not be OAB-dry and there is a spectrum that exists between the two groups (OAB-dry and OAB-wet).
Presented by Jennifer Anger, Lisa Rogo-Gupta, A. Behniwal, R. Rashid, A. Nissim, Ariana Smith, Mark Litwin, Sally Malitski, and Larissa Rodriquez at the Society for Urodynamics and Female Urology (SUFU) 2011 Winter Meeting - March 1 - 5, 2011 - Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Reported for UroToday by Diane K. Newman, RNC, MSN, CRNP, FAAN and Continence Nurse Practitioner Specialist - University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
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