The OAB Awareness Tool

The 8-item symptom bother scale of the original OAB-q has been validated as an awareness tool to assist patients and physicians in primary care settings. Validation of the OAB Awareness Tool was recently described in a presentation at the 2004 Joint Meeting of the International Continence Society and the International Urogynecological Society.

Validation of the OAB Awareness Tool was recently described in a presentation at the 2004 Joint Meeting of the International Continence Society and the International Urogynecological Society.

The 8-item symptom bother scale of the OAB-q has been evaluated as a screening tool for use in a primary care setting to identify patients who may have OAB. This study was conducted among 1260 patients from a primary care setting. Patients with a positive screener score were 95.7 times more likely than other patients to be diagnosed with Probable OAB.

The screening scores among the three diagnostic groups identified by clinicians (i.e., no OAB, possible OAB, probable OAB) were significantly different from each other.

This brief, simple tool can be used to screen for OAB in the primary care setting and raise awareness of OAB among primary care physicians and patients.