Understanding King’s Health Questionnaire (KHQ) in assessment of female urinary incontinence.

Urinary incontinence has emerged as one of the leading medical problems for the geriatric population worldwide. Women are affected physically, mentally and socially and face embarrassment, depression and isolation. Increased life expectancy further adds to the prevalence of the condition and social, economic and health care burden. Although not sinister by itself, urinary incontinence has a profound impact on a woman‟s quality of life and warrants appropriate management. The efficacy of interventional procedures is measured by the caregiver mainly by improvement in urodynamic parameters. However, these gadgets do not assess the individual's satisfaction and feeling of wellbeing following the therapeutic intervention. Several generic QoL tools have been developed in an attempt to quantify these changes. But ironically, generic QoL questionnaires lack precision when applied to subjects with specific disease condition. In the context of female urinary problems, various QoL tools have been designed and investigated. King‟s Health Questionnaire (KHQ), which was formulated as early as 1997 by the group of researchers from King‟s College Hospital London still enjoys popularity till today, because of its strong psychometric properties, ease of administration and it adds objectivity to patient‟s subjective symptoms. However, the available information about KHQ is somewhat inadequate for the novice research scholar. The following brief essay aims at easy understanding of implementation, documentation, analysis and interpretation of King‟s Health Questionnaire in research settings.