ICIQ-PPHSAQ
International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire
Perinatal Pelvic Health Self-Assessment Questionnaire (ICIQ-PPHSAQ)
Background
As part of the NHS England Maternity Transformation Programme, Perinatal Pelvic Health Services (PPHS) have been established throughout England to improve the prevention, identification, and access to NICE-recommended treatment for pelvic health problems antenatally and at least 12 months postnatally. As part of this programme, NHS England commissioned the development of the ICIQ Perinatal Pelvic Health Self-Assessment Questionnaire (ICIQ-PPHSAQ).
The questionnaire captures information on the presence of risk factors for pelvic floor disorders (PFD) and the severity, bother and impact of symptoms in the areas of bladder, bowel, vagina/prolapse and sexual activity. The questionnaire is intended to enable the early identification of women with symptoms, the monitoring of symptoms over time, and to inform appropriate referral for diagnoses and management of symptoms.
Development
The ICIQ-PPHSAQ is a validated questionnaire co-developed with health professionals and service users, using robust and rigorous research methodology. Following its initial content development, the completion of the questionnaire by a large sample of perinatal women has enabled the assessment of its measurement properties, including its validity and reliability, and the derivation of a scoring system. This will be detailed in subsequent publications to follow.
Composition of ICIQ-PPHSAQ
ICIQ-PPHSAQ comprises three questionnaires:
Antenatal questionnaire: 13 items
Postnatal questionnaire: 13 items
Symptoms questionnaire: 35 items over four sections comprising bladder; bowel; vagina/prolapse; sexual activity
Please register on the 'Request Modules' page to download the questionnaires
Associated publications:
https://www.ics.org/2024/abstract/761
Completion time:
Antenatal: 5 minutes
Postnatal: 5 minutes
Symptoms: 5-10 minutes
Scoring:
The symptoms questionnaire includes sections of questions that have all been found to group together. For example, in the ‘Your bladder’ section there are ‘Bladder leakage (BL) and ‘Urinary habit’ (UH) sections. The BL section contains questions that relate to bladder leakage severity and can provide an overall score for this aspect of the patient’s health. Individual question scores within each section can then be simply added together as shown within the questionnaire (a place to sum the score is shown at the end of each section). The final overall questions that are at the end of each section are on a scale of 0-10, and should be used separately to give an indication of the interference on everyday life.
The last page of the paper-based questionnaire (page 16) can be used to bring all of the section scores together for clinical review.
Part ‘b’ of each question asks, ‘how much does this bother you?’ on a scale of 0-10, and is not included in the scoring. These responses can be reviewed separately alongside each question to understand which symptoms are most bothersome.
An ICIQ-PPHSAQ guide for clinical users is available to download.
Available languages:
Arabic • English (UK) • Hindi • Nepali • Punjabi • Romanian • Urdu
Translations under development:
German • Polish • Turkish
We welcome enquiries about translating the ICIQ-PPHSAQ into additional languages. If you are interested in undertaking a translation, please contact us.