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. 2022 Apr 6;17(4):e0266479. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266479

International consultation on incontinence questionnaire – Urinary incontinence short form ICIQ-UI SF: Validation of its use in a Danish speaking population of municipal employees

Lærke Cecilie Grøn Jensen 1,*, Sidsel Boie 2,#, Susanne Axelsen 3,#
Editor: Peter FWM Rosier4
PMCID: PMC8986014  PMID: 35385519

Abstract

Introduction

Worldwide, the estimated prevalence of urinary incontinence is 8.7%. Urinary incontinence is more frequent in women than in men. Posing the right questions is crucial, when diagnosing urinary incontinence, but also to evaluate the need of treatment and treatment effect. Therefore, reliable and validated questionnaires within this area are needed. Even though the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire–Urinary Incontinence Short Form (ICIQ-UI SF) has been used on a daily basis in the Danish Urogynaecological Database since 2006, it has not yet been validated in a Danish population of both men and women.

Objective

To test the reliability and validity of the Danish version of the ICIQ-UI SF in a Danish speaking population of men and women among municipal employees.

Methods

Content validity was evaluated with semi-structured interviews. A quantitative field test was performed, in which the questionnaire was distributed electronically to municipal workers by E-mail. Statistical methods included item characteristics (missings, kurtosis and skewness), internal consistency (Chronbach’s alfa), test-retest (ICC), construct validity (known group validation), and floor and ceiling effect.

Results

A number of 1814 Danish municipal workers completed the questionnaire. Of the total number of responders, 426 were invited to complete the questionnaire twice (for test-retest) and 215 (50.5%) of these completed the questions again two weeks later. Statistical analyses of the ICIQ-UI SF demonstrated no floor and ceiling effects, skewness was zero and kurtosis 0.00–0.49. Cronbach’s alfa was 0.87 and intraclass correlation coefficient 0.73. Two out of three hypotheses were accepted in the known-groups validation.

Conclusion

This study offers an adaptation of the ICIQ-UI SF to a Danish setting. The Danish ICIQ-UI SF demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. However, clinicians should consider the relatively high measurement error.

Introduction

Worldwide, the estimated prevalence of urinary incontinence (UI) is 8.7% [1]. A meta-analysis found mean prevalence rates for men and women to be 14.5% and 23.5% respectively, as UI is more frequent in women than in men [2]. Thereby, UI is a common problem and moreover has a profoundly negative impact on health-related quality of life both physically and socially [3, 4].

When diagnosing UI, posing the right questions is crucial, and reliable and validated questionnaires are needed in clinical as well as research settings.

The Danish ICIQ-UI SF

The International Consultation on Incontinence (ICI) recommends to use questions from their Modular Questionnaire (the ICIQ), when conducting studies on UI, to achieve international unified standardization [5]. The International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire–Urinary Incontinence Short Form (ICIQ-UI SF) evaluates the severity of UI symptoms and their impact on health-related quality of life. When using the ICIQ-UI SF, a total ICIQ score with a range from 0–21 is achieved from the first three questions. A score of zero means no leakage of urine and no affection on quality of life [6]. Question 1 (Q1) quantifies the frequency of urinary leaking, question 2 (Q2) evaluates the amount of leaking and question 3 (Q3) how much the urinary incontinence interferes with the everyday life.

In 1999, the questionnaire was developed by ICI sponsored by the World Health Organization in order to detect UI symptoms, their impact on quality of life and treatment outcome [5].

In Denmark, two Danish translations of the ICIQ-UI SF are used. One is approved by the ICIQ and the other is developed by the Danish Urogynaecology Society (DUGS). In accordance with previously used terminology, the version developed by DUGS will be mentioned as “VersionDUGS” [7]. VersionDUGS uses the term “leakage of urine” while the original ICIQ-UI SF uses “urinary incontinence”. VersionDUGS is widely used in Denmark and has been used on a daily basis in the Danish Urogynaecological Database (containing data from women operated for UI and prolapse) since 2006 [8]. But it has not yet been validated in the general Danish population with both men and women, making it impossible for researchers and clinicians to cater the psychometric and measurement properties of the questionnaire. One validation study has been conducted on the Danish ICIQ-UI SF but this did only include women [7].

Even though validation studies of the English ICIQ-UI SF have been performed, values from Cronbach’s alfa and kappa statistics range significantly and information about ceiling effect and differential item functioning are limited [9].

Since the ICIQ-UI SF is the recommended first choice instrument, validity and reliability are still continuously relevant to evaluate, and especially when using the instrument on a new study population never tested with the ICIQ-UI SF before. Evaluation of validity and reliability of the Danish ICIQ-UI SF has never been performed in a large study sample of different sexes or in the general Danish population, even though UI affects all sexes and age groups.

The aim of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Danish translated version of the ICIQ-UI SF, VersionDUGS, in a population reflecting the general Danish population.

UI is not only a problem among women and the Danish translated version of ICIQ-UI SF, VersionDUGS, is not only used within gynaecology but widely used within different specialities such as general practitioners, urology, neurology, and physiotherapy. Therefore, is it highly relevant with an evaluation of the validity and reliability in a big study sample with different sexes, a wide age distribution and a diverse education level. This study provides clinicians and researchers with such an evaluation.

Methods

The questionnaire

Additional questions were included to supplement the ICIQ-UI SF with background data and information about chronic diseases. Background data include information about age, sex, Body Mass Index, education level, smoking habits, highest completed education, civil status, and chronic diseases. The questionnaire is shown in S1 Table. The questionnaire was created in and distributed from REDCap—Research Electronic Data Capture, a secure web-based platform for construction and management of surveys and online databases [10].

The original ICIQ-UI SF in English and all translated versions can be found on ICIQ’s official webpage and all copyrights of these are preserved by ICIQ [11].

Approval to use VersionDUGS was provided in a written form from DUGS.

Pilot test: Content validity

VersionDUGS was pilot tested to evaluate face validity and content validity. The COSMIN panel defines face validity as ‘the degree to which a measurement instrument, indeed, looks as though it is an adequate reflection of the construct to be measured’, and the content validity as ‘the degree to which the content of a measurement instrument is an adequate reflection of the construct to be measured’ [12]. In accordance with the COSMIN checklist, content validity was evaluated with a pilot test on a small sample size from a relevant population—in this case 14 public workers (nine women and five men, from 27 to 63 years old).

Pilot-testing was performed with semi-structured interviews with the 14 public workers during and after they had answered the questionnaire. Participants to the pilot-test were recruited with informative emails to employees in a specific department with permission from the management. The ‘Three-step Test-interview’ (TSTI) was the basis for the semi-structured interviews. It combines the ‘think loud’ and ‘probing’ methods, which makes it a powerful method for evaluating the comprehension and comprehensibility [12]. The three steps in the TSTI consist of: 1) Observational data through concurrent think loud; observation of the respondent’s behaviour while filling in the questionnaire and asking the respondent to ‘think loud’, 2) Focused interview–clarifying the observed; the interviewer asks with the purpose of filling in gaps of the observational data and 3) Semi-structured interview–eliciting experiences; questions about response behaviour, wording in the questionnaire and understanding of definitions [13].

The participants were asked about the relevance of each item, the comprehensiveness of the questionnaire, the comprehensibility of the instructions, items and response options and lastly, if they missed any items or response options. Furthermore, six medical professionals within the area of focus were asked about the relevance of each item and the comprehensiveness.

Quantitative field test of the ICIQ-UI SF

The validity and reliability of VersionDUGS were investigated in a quantitative field-test. Participants were recruited through the municipal of their workplace. A formal invitation to participate including a study presentation and instructions were sent to the directors of the municipal. The directors were asked to distribute an email invitation with the open link questionnaire together with information about data storage and GDPR to their municipal employees. Several of the participating municipals distributed the invitation internally. For this reason, it is not possible to report the response rate. Inclusion criteria were age over 18 years and municipal employment. In the bottom of the questionnaire, we asked for their permission to send them the same questionnaire once again (for test-retest).

Statistical analysis

STATA was used for statistical analyses. Statistical methods include item characteristics (missings, kurtosis and skewness), internal consistency (Cronbach’s alfa), test-retest (ICC), construct validity (known group validation), and floor and ceiling effect.

Item characteristics and floor and ceiling effects

Skewness and kurtosis are both statistical measures for distribution and reveal if answers are normal distributed variables. If skewness equals zero it reflects a normal distribution while a negative skewness reflects a left-skewed distribution where the mean is lower than the median [14]. If kurtosis equals three it reflects a normal distribution of the variable, while higher than three is called leptokurtic and below three platykurtic. A leptokurtic distribution (high kurtosis) is characterized by a certain amount of peakedness while a playtykurtic distribution (low kurtosis) is characterized by a certain amount of flatness with fewer and less extreme outliers than normal distributed variables [15].

Internal consistency

The COSMIN panel defines internal consistency as the interrelatedness between items and is only relevant to perform on patient reported outcome measures of the reflective model and when all items form a unidimensional scale [16]. Internal consistency is calculated for Q1-Q3 in the ICIQ-UI SF with Cronbach’s alfa [17].

Reliability—test-retest

Intraclass correlation coefficient (agreement) was calculated for Q1-Q3 in the ICIQ-UI SF [18]. An ICC under 0,5 is poor, between 0.5–0.75 moderate, over 0.75 good and over 0.9 is considered excellent [19]. Standard error of measurement-agreement (SEMagreement) and then the smallest real different (SRD) was calculated with the following equations:

SEM=SD1ICC.:SD=SDtime1+SDtime2/2.
SRD=SEM*1.96*2.

Construct validity

Three hypotheses were tested: 1) women are more likely to be urinary incontinent than men [20], 2) participants older than 50 years are more likely to be urinary incontinent than participants younger than 50 years [21], 3) participants with a BMI≥30 are more likely to be urinary incontinent than participants with BMI<30 [22, 23].

Ethics

The project was approved by the Danish Data Agency (656336) and The National Ethical Committee has approved that this project was carried out without their involvement (1-10-72-186-19).

Consent to participate in the evaluation was achieved in a written enquiry. We sent the information about the evaluation to the directors of the participating municipals and asked them if they would allow their employees to participate. If they accepted the participation, the same information about purpose, questionnaire, time consumption, GDPR rules, anonymization of the responder, data protection and -storage, ethics of the study and that participation could be interrupted at any time was sent to the employees.

Results

Interview findings: Content validity

Interview participants found the ICIQ-UI SF comprehensive and easy to complete. Therefore, the three step test interviews did not lead to any changes.

Field test

The questionnaire was electronically distributed to municipal workers in 16 Danish municipals from 20.01.2020 to 11.05.2020. A total of 1825 persons opened the questionnaire, but 11 of these did not complete any items and were excluded. Therefore, the final study sample consisted of 1814 participants. Among the responders, 426 were invited to answer the questionnaire again after two weeks and 215 of these answered and were included in test-retest (response rate for second round = 50.5%). A total of 418 of the 1814 responders (23%) reported urinary incontinence. The participants reported demographics as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Baseline demographics.

All Incontinence, yes
N = 1814 N = 418 (23%)
Age, years mean (SD) 48.30 (11.43) 50.07 (9.8)
Sex, female n (%) 1402 (83.8) 396 (88.3)
BMI, kg/cm2 mean (SD) 26.6 (5.4) 27.9 (6.0)
Highest completed Education n (%)
 Primary school 35 (2.1) 0 (0)
 Secondary education 32 (1.9) 5 (1.2)
 Skilled 198 (11.8) 45 (10.8)
 Short higher education 292 (17.4) 76 (18.2)
 Medium higher education 851 (50.8) 223 (53.3)
 Long higher education 243 (14.5) 58 (13.9)
 Other 23 (1.4) 11 (2.6)
Civil status n (%)
 Single 246 (14.7) 51 (12.2)
 Married or cohabitating 1346 (74.2) 352 (84.2)
 Other 71 (4.3) 15 (3.6)
Smoking, yes n (%) 236 (14.2) 48 (11.5)
Chronic diseases*, yes n (%) 437 (26.1) 129 (30.9)

*Chronic diseases were exemplified in the questionnaire with diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart diseases.

ICIQ-UI SF, VersionDUGS

Item characteristics and floor and ceiling effects

Floor effect of the ICIQ-score was 4.26% and ceiling effect was 0.24%, indicating that the ICIQ-UI SF manages to differentiate between the respondents.

Skewness was close to zero in Q1-Q3, while kurtosis was 2.79 in Q1, 13.28 in Q2 and 2.88 in Q3 as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Skewness and Kurtosis for Q1-Q3.
Observations Mean (SD) Skewness Kurtosis Missing, n (%)
Q1 418 1.7 (1.1) 0.89 2.79 0
Q2 418 2.0 (0.6) 0.83 13.28 0
Q3 413 3.2 (2.5) 0.89 2.88 5 (1.2)

The skewness of Q1-Q3 is positive but close to zero and thereby indicates a distribution of the answers close to a normal distribution but slightly right-skewed. The kurtosis of Q1 and Q3 indicates a platykurtic distribution with fewer and less extreme outliers than a normal distribution [15]. The kurtosis of Q2 = 13.28 is per definition a leptokurtic distribution, which produces more outliers than a normal distribution.

Internal consistency

Cronbach’s alfa for Q1-Q3 was 0.87.

Reliability

Of 426 invited respondents, 215 completed the questionnaire again after two weeks for test-retest (response rate = 50.47%). The intraclass correlation coefficient (agreement) was calculated for these participants and was 0.73 for Q1-Q3. SEMagreement was calculated: SEM=3.4310.73=1.78

SRD=1.78*1.96*2=4.9.

Construct validity–known-groups validation

Risk differences were calculated to test three hypotheses. Two out of three hypotheses were accepted: women are more likely to have incontinence than men, RD = 0.22 (95%-CI:0.17–0.25) and participants with a BMI≥30 are more likely to have incontinence than participants with BMI<30, RD = 0.11 (95%-CI: 0.06–0.16).

Discussion

This is the first validation study of the Danish translated version of ICIQ-UI SF, VersionDUGS in a population reflecting the general Danish population.

Interview-participants found the questions appropriate, comprehensive, and easy to complete.

We had 0 missing answers for Q1 and Q2, and 1.2% for Q3 which is consistent with the number of missings in other validation studies [7, 24]. Floor and ceiling effects as well as skewness and kurtosis were acceptable in our study group.

The Cronbach’s alfa was high (0.87) compared to the validation study conducted by Clausen et al. reporting a Cronbach’s’ alfa of 0.7 [7]. Cronbach’s alfa ranges from 0.71–0.78 in validation studies of the ICIQ-UI SF in languages such as Persian, Chinese, and Japanese [2527], while higher values of Cronbach’s alfa has been shown in validation studies from Croatia and Slovenia on 0.85 and 0.81, respectively [28, 29]. Cronbach’s alfa is highly affected by the variation of the population and participants in a heterogenous population will have a higher Cronbach’s alfa than participants in a more homogenous population [30]. Our population consists of different sexes, have a wide age distribution, and represents a broad level of education, making it a very heterogenous population. This could explain why VersionDUGS has a higher Cronbach’s alfa in our validation study than in the Danish validation study by Clausen et al. [7].

The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.73 is moderate. An ICC of 0.73 is acceptable and indicates that responders of the Danish translated version of ICIQ-UI SF, VersionDUGS did not differ their answers in a two weeks’ time period [31]. Clausen et al. also showed stable test-retest results in a group consisting of Danish women and studies from other countries show test-retest results from acceptable to excellent [5, 7, 32]. While ICC is unitless, the SEM of 1.78 has the same unit as the measurement score. The SRD of 4.9 was calculated from the SEM and tells us that an individual’s difference on repeated testing on 4.9 or greater will reflect a real difference in 95% of the cases. This is a relatively high SRD, indicating high measurement error which clinicians may want to consider, when using VersionDUGS.

Finally, two out of three hypotheses were accepted in the known-groups validation.

Strengths and limitations

As in any qualitative study, interview findings in the pilot test of the questionnaire could be biased by the interviewer’s preunderstanding of the field. However, using a specific interview model (TSTI) and making the pilot test structured and systematic helped reducing this type of bias [12, 13]. Being conscious of our preunderstanding when evaluating the interviews decreased any potential bias as well. Finally, adopting the relevant design criteria of the COSMIN checklist in the quantitative field test of the ICIQ-UI SF reduced any idiosyncrasies [33, 34]. Nevertheless, the quantitative field test had some possible limitations. Only municipal workers were included, which should be taken into account when using VersionDUGS in other populations. This may affect the generalization of our results to an arbitrary population. However, the large study group had no other specific characteristics making them less representative. Moreover, it is by far the largest study group of different sexes in a validation study of the ICIQ-UI SF. Unfortunately, due to the open link invitation, it was not possible to estimate response rates or evaluate if the non-responders differed in terms of baseline characteristics from the responders. Nevertheless, the recruitment method is justified by the goal of achieving a large study group with a broad age distribution and the fact that no other opportunities were available when targeting municipal workers.

Conclusion

The Danish translated version of ICIQ UI SF, VersionDUGS is a valid and reliable measure of urinary incontinence in a Danish population consisting of different sexes. However, clinicians should consider the relatively high measurement error of VersionDUGS.

Supporting information

S1 Table. The questionnaire.

(DOCX)

Abbreviations

UI

Urinary Incontinence

DUGS

Danish Urogynaecology Society

BMI

Body Mass Index

ICIQ-UI SF

International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire–Urinary Incontinence Short Form

REDCap

Research Electronic Data Capture

COSMIN

COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments

ICC

Intraclass correlation coefficient

PROM

Patient reported outcome measures

GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation

Data Availability

Data cannot be shared publicly because it contains sensitive personal information about Danish citizens. Owing to Danish legislation, data will be available only after approval by The Danish Data Protection Agency and with a signed access agreement. Therefore, access to the data can be received following a request to forskningsprojekter@rm.dk (The Danish Data Protection Agency – Central Region of Denmark). Project number: 656336.

Funding Statement

This project was financed by ‘Satspuljemidler’ assigned by the Danish Health Ministry to Kontinensforeningen (a Danish patient organisation). URL: https://kontinens.org The funders did not play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Decision Letter 0

Peter FWM Rosier

26 Nov 2021

PONE-D-21-30384International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire – Urinary Incontinence Short Form ICIQ-UI SF: Validation of its use in a Danish speaking population of municipal employeesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Grøn Jensen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: Apart from the reviewers comments I ask you to consider that the readers may want to know how your analysis of the questionnaire relates to the original, eg are floor and ceiling effects, consistency and or test retest variation (very) different from the original, or not?

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 10 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Peter F.W.M. Rosier, M.D. PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information.

If you are reporting a retrospective study of medical records or archived samples, please ensure that you have discussed whether all data were fully anonymized before you accessed them and/or whether the IRB or ethics committee waived the requirement for informed consent. If patients provided informed written consent to have data from their medical records used in research, please include this information.

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to peer review your manuscript

In this study you have performed a validation of a Danish version of the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-urinary incontinence-short form (ICIQ-UI-SF) named VersionDUGS using Classical Test Theory (TCC).

In a pilot test with 14 public workers and six health care professionals you have performed thorough qualitative analyses of both face and content validity and construct validity has been evaluated through three hypotheses (known-group validity) (sex, age, BMI). Furthermore, you have examined internal consistency of the three items that can be scored with the Cronbach’s alfa.

Pretesting (field test) of the questionnaire has been performed in male and female municipal workers who have been invited through email to complete an online version of the questionnaire

Test-retest reliability has been examined by calculating an Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)

You find good face and content validity and two of your three hypotheses are confirmed (Sex and BMI).

1814 municipal workers (1402 female), have completed the questionnaire and 215 (50.5%) of 426 invited complete it twice

You find low internal consistency of the three items (0.48) while floor and ceiling effect is low. Distribution of scores is adequate.

Test-retest reliability based on the ICC is moderate (0.73)

You conclude that the Danish VersionDUGS has acceptable validity and reliability

Major comment

This is a well performed study with an adequate sample size. You have followed the COSMIN checklist and fulfill the criteria for a high-quality study. Your methods are well described including your qualitive method which is very well explained.

You describe that there are two versions of the ICIQ-UI SF in Danish, and that the VersionDUGS is widely used in a Danish database but not approved by the ICIQ (Bristol Institute). Could it be a problem to have two versions of the ICIQ-UI SF in Danish? Did you consider comparing the two versions in a study? Would it be possible to merge the two versions?

You determine relative reliability using ICC and your ICC is only moderate. It would be of interest to the reader know the absolute reliability: I.e. standard error of measurement (SEM 95%), Smallest real difference (SRD) or minimal detectable change (MDC). Alternatively, you could present limits of agreement (Bland and Altman method)

Minor comments

Gaussian is an old term, for the reader the term “normal distribution” would be preferred

P. 10, l. 187: The ICC model: 2.3 agreement, where does the “3” come from?

How were the participants for the pilot test recruited?

How did you recruit respondents for the retest? Randomly?

You find a low Cronbach´s alfa but do not describe the value of each item? Probably, the low alfa is not a problem since number of items has an influence on this. Even though inter-item correlation may be higher if you add more items as you suggest in your discussion this may not improve content validity.

Reviewer #2: I congratulate the authors for composing a work towards the use of a valid version

of the ICIQ in Denmark. I'm certain this will expand their possibilities to study the

outcomes of their patients in a more reliable way. Authors often state that a quality of life scale is

''valid''. However, these instruments should not be viewed as valid or not valid since validity and

reliability are based on evidence accumulated over time, not one-time, dichotomous concepts.

Validation studies attempt to measure the extent to which evidence supports that the instruments

are measuring what they are supposed to measure and quantitate the error in doing so. Based on

this, the study is useful since it demonstrated that the instruments performed as designed in a

different population with a different language.

I suggest improving discussion with some of the validation studies which have demonstrated higher Cronbach-alpha value - such as: Mikuš M, Ćorić M, Matak L, Škegro B, Vujić G, Banović V. Validation of the UDI-6 and the ICIQ-UI SF - Croatian version. Int Urogynecol J. 2020 Dec;31(12):2625-2630. doi: 10.1007/s00192-020-04500-4. Epub 2020 Aug 21. PMID: 32821964. AND Rotar M, Tršinar B, Kisner K, et al. Correlations between the ICIQ- UI short form and urodynamic diagnosis. Neurourol Urodyn. 2009;28(6):501–5.

Also, there is need for improvement in English style and overall language.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2022 Apr 6;17(4):e0266479. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266479.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


22 Jan 2022

Dear Mr. Rosier,

We thank you as well as the reviewers for your time, your expertise and your useful valuable comments to improve our manuscript.

In accordance with your inquiries, we have:

- Checked and updated our submission in relation to PLOS ONE’s style requirements.

- Provided additional information about consent in the Ethics section and in the online formula.

- Revised the reference list.

In the following, we answer each comment from Reviewer 1 and 2, starting with the major comments and then the minor. However, first we have one major change in the manuscript, that we would like to account for:

In relation to the revision, I recalculated all the statistics of the results, which led to the discovery of a incorrect item which was included in the previous calculation of Cronbach’s alfa. I recalculated the Cronbach’s alfa for the three correct items (included in the ICIQ-score) and discussed the result with my supervisors/co-authors.

Of course, we prefer transparency about our incorrect calculation included in the first manuscript draft and have now corrected the result of Cronbach’s alfa and the relevant paragraphs surrounding the Cronbach’s alfa in the results, discussion and conclusion sections.

We hope that our honesty and scrupulous revision will be well received and appreciated.

Reviewer 1:

#Major comment 1: Could it be a problem to have two versions of the ICIQ-UI SF in Danish? Did you consider comparing the two versions in a study? Would it be possible to merge the two versions?

VersionDUGS is widely used in Denmark and especially within the field of gynecology, where it is used for reporting to the Danish database (DugaBase).

The difference between the two versions does not involve the three items used for the ICIQ-score. Therefore, and for practical reasons, we decided only to validate VersionDUGS.

VersionDUGS is validated for women by Clausen et al. and we continued by validating VersionDUGS in a population with both men and women.

#Major comment 2: It would be of interest to the reader know the absolute reliability.

We have added Standard Error of Measurement to supplement our ICC.

Answer to minor comments:

- “Gaussian distribution” is changed to “Normal distribution”

- “2.3 agreement” has been replaced with just “ICC (agreement)” since the “2.3” information won’t be useful to the readers of the article.

- Information is added about recruitment to both the pilot test and the retest.

Reviewer 2:

#Major comment 1: I suggest improving discussion with some of the validation studies which have demonstrated higher Cronbach-alpha value.

We have included validation studies with higher values of Cronbach’s alfa as requested (page 11 line 217).

#Major comment 2: Also, there is need for improvement in English style and overall language.

We have to our very best tried to improve the overall language and the manuscript was proofread by a medically knowledgeable with English as his mother tongue.

All changes are marked with yellow in the manuscript with track changes.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We will thorughly respond to any further questions or comments that you might have.

Kind regards on behalf of the author group

Lærke Cecilie Grøn Jensen

Medical Student, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, Denmark

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

Peter FWM Rosier

10 Feb 2022

PONE-D-21-30384R1International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire – Urinary Incontinence Short Form ICIQ-UI SF: Validation of its use in a Danish speaking population of municipal employeesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Grøn Jensen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: A small challenge remains, can you add the information to the manuscript?==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 27 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Peter F.W.M. Rosier, M.D. PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

None

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for your revised manuscript

As requested, you have provided the equation for the calculation of absolute reliability (Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)) and you also very shortly report the result from your calculation, but you have not explained what it means in relation to the reliability of the ICIQ-VersionDUGS.

It seems that you have calculated a SEM (68% at group level), but you do not tell what 1.57 means to the test-retest reliability of the ICIQ-VersionDUGS. Furthermore, this figure would be 3.1, if you had calculated SEM (95% at group level), which is relevant for research settings (SEM x1.96), and 4.3 at an individual level. The latter representing the smallest real difference (SRD) (SEM x 1.96 x √2).

The implications of the results above should be described and discussed since it is important knowledge for both researchers and clinicians.

In your discussion page 12, line 234 you write:” The intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.73 is moderate, which is confirmed in the calculated standard error of measurement”. Why does the ICC affect SEM and could you have calculated the SEM based on another analysis (ANOVA)?

Line 235: should be a zero.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to re-revise this manuscript. The revised version is fully acceptable for publication in PLOS ONE.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2022 Apr 6;17(4):e0266479. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266479.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


17 Mar 2022

Peter F.W.M. Rosier, M.D. PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Resubmission date: 17.03.2022

Dear Mr. Rosier,

We thank you as well as the reviewers for your time, your expertise and your useful valuable comments to improve our manuscript. We are very grateful to the reviewers for their comments on our manuscript.

All changes are marked with yellow in the manuscript with track changes and we hope that these revisions are sufficient to make our manuscript suitable for publication in PLOS ONE.

Here is a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments:

Reviewer 1:

Thank you for your revised manuscript

As requested, you have provided the equation for the calculation of absolute reliability (Standard Error of Measurement (SEM)) and you also very shortly report the result from your calculation, but you have not explained what it means in relation to the reliability of the ICIQ-VersionDUGS.

It seems that you have calculated a SEM (68% at group level), but you do not tell what 1.57 means to the test-retest reliability of the ICIQ-VersionDUGS. Furthermore, this figure would be 3.1, if you had calculated SEM (95% at group level), which is relevant for research settings (SEM x1.96), and 4.3 at an individual level. The latter representing the smallest real difference (SRD) (SEM x 1.96 x √2).

The implications of the results above should be described and discussed since it is important knowledge for both researchers and clinicians.

In your discussion page 12, line 234 you write:” The intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.73 is moderate, which is confirmed in the calculated standard error of measurement”. Why does the ICC affect SEM and could you have calculated the SEM based on another analysis (ANOVA)?

Line 235: should be a zero.

Answer to reviewer 1:

We thank reviewer 1 for the valuable suggestions and we agree that we could improve our use and presentation of SEM. We have therefore been in contact with a Danish expert in questionnaire technique and clinemetrics to ensure that we use the appropriate equations in our validation study.

We were guided to use the following equations to calculate the appropriate SEM to our ICC:

SEM=SD √(1-ICC) SD=(SD_time1+SD_time2)/2.

We include these equations and the calculations in the manuscript to make the results transparent and to enable readers of our manuscript to calculate further on the numbers.

As you suggested, we furthermore calculated the smallest real difference. A comment on the SEM and SRD is added to the discussion (p. 13 line 233) as well as in the conclusion (p. 14 line 257).

Reviewer 2: Thank you for the opportunity to re-revise this manuscript. The revised version is fully acceptable for publication in PLOS ONE

Answer to reviewer 2:

Thank you very much for this comment. We are happy to read that you find our manuscript acceptable for publication.

We look forward to hearing from you and will happily respond to any further questions or comments you may have.

Kind regards on behalf of the author group

Lærke Cecilie Grøn Jensen

Medical Student, Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, Denmark

Vennelyst Boulevard 4, 8000 Aarhus C

laerke-cecilie@hotmail.com

Tel.: +45 30 69 96 74

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 2

Peter FWM Rosier

22 Mar 2022

International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire – Urinary Incontinence Short Form ICIQ-UI SF: Validation of its use in a Danish speaking population of municipal employees

PONE-D-21-30384R2

Dear Dr. Grøn Jensen,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Peter F.W.M. Rosier, M.D. PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Acceptance letter

Peter FWM Rosier

28 Mar 2022

PONE-D-21-30384R2

International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire – Urinary Incontinence Short Form ICIQ-UI SF: Validation of its use in a Danish speaking population of municipal employees

Dear Dr. Grøn Jensen:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Peter F.W.M. Rosier

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Table. The questionnaire.

    (DOCX)

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    Data cannot be shared publicly because it contains sensitive personal information about Danish citizens. Owing to Danish legislation, data will be available only after approval by The Danish Data Protection Agency and with a signed access agreement. Therefore, access to the data can be received following a request to forskningsprojekter@rm.dk (The Danish Data Protection Agency – Central Region of Denmark). Project number: 656336.


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