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Hong Kong Med J 2005;11:158-63

Female urinary incontinence is a major health problem not only affecting individual's life but also relationships with family members. Instead of the frequency of urine loss or symptoms of urinary incontinence, degree of impairment of quality of life is a good indicator of whether a patient needs medical treatment. As a result, doctors from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Prince of Wales Hospital have researched into the prevalence of female urinary incontinence in Hong Kong and its impact on quality of life.

Published in the June 2005 issue of Hong Kong Medical Journal, the study was carried out by a territory-wide telephone survey between June 2001 and July 2002 of which the targeted population was Hong Kong women aged 10 to 90 years. The validated Chinese versions of Urogenital Distress Inventory Short Form (UDI-6) and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire Short Form (IIQ-7) were used to evaluate urinary symptoms and impact on quality of life, respectively.

Of 749 valid respondents, urinary symptoms were reported by 53% of women, of whom 12% believed it impaired their quality of life. Stress urinary incontinence was reported by 34%, and social (5.1%) and emotional factors (5.6%) were the quality-of-life areas most impacted by urinary incontinence.

It was concluded that urinary incontinence is common among Hong Kong women, and there was impairment of quality of life in 12% of the affected women.

Hong Kong Med J 2005;11:174-80

Chronic pain is increasingly recognised as a major global health problem. In adults with chronic pain, the pain interferes with their daily lives, and may affect their work. In order to evaluate Hong Kong patients' health-related quality of life, a prospective cross-sectional survey was carried out between July 2002 and February 2003 involving 180 new patients attending multidisciplinary pain management centre at the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, and pain management clinics at the Prince of Wales Hospital and North District Hospital.

According to the report in the June 2005 issue of Hong Kong Medical Journal, analysis of data from 166 patients found that work-related injury was associated with a large proportion (34%) of chronic pain in the survey. A similar proportion of patients were involved in pain-related litigation, while 32% were receiving disability or unemployment benefit. About 55% of the patients had received complimentary alternative medical treatment, mostly traditional Chinese medicine.

More than 70% of patients surveyed had Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (a screening tool for anxiety and depression) scores suggesting the presence of anxiety or depression. Unemployed patients had higher depression scores than those in employment or with home duties. All quality-of-life subscales of the SF36 questionnaire scores were lower in the chronic pain patients when compared with local population norm. Patients were more likely to be associated with litigation if they were married, injured at work, younger age, or had higher general health scores in the SF36 questionnaire. Those unemployed and those with a lower level of physical functioning were more likely to be associated with social welfare benefit.

The study concluded that there was a high prevalence of clinical anxiety, depression, and severe impairment in the health-related quality of life in Hong Kong Chinese patients with chronic non-cancer pain.