Urdu translation and validation of the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6) in women with urinary incontinence

Objective: To provide an Urdu translation of the six-item version of the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6) and its validation in patients with urinary incontinence (UI), as the UDI-6 is a recognised, useful disease-specific questionnaire for the evaluation of UI in women. Patients and methods: We used a multi-step linguistic translation of the UDI-6, which comprised backward and forward translations coordinated by clinical investigators, followed by a pre-test in 10 patients. The final version was completed by a larger sample of women (n = 200), of which 100 had UI for the last 3 months and 100 had no UI. To appraise test–retest reliability the patients with UI were re-tested after 2 weeks. To test the questionnaire’s capacity to discriminate between women with or without UI, both cases (patients) and controls were included and assessed. The reliability of the UDI-6 was evaluated by internal consistency and was calculated using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test with P values, and test–retest reliability assessed by Spearman’s coefficient with P values. Results: The reliability of the UDI-6 was assessed for internal consistency and test–retest reliability was evaluated by Spearman’s coefficient, which showed significant P values. Conclusion: The present Urdu version of the UDI-6 is a linguistically valid instrument that can be reliably used in clinical practice and research. Abbreviations: IIQ-7: seven-item version of the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire; IQR: interquartile ranges; QoL: quality of life; UDI-6: six-item version of the urogenital distress inventory; UI: urinary incontinence.