Construction of the Mandarin version of the International Prostate Symptom Score inventory in assessing lower urinary tract symptoms in a Malaysian population

Background: The purpose of the present study was to validate the Mandarin version of the Interna- tional Prostate Symptom Score (Mand-IPSS) in a Malaysian population. Methods: The validity and reliability were studied in patients with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS; benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) group) and without LUTS (control group). Test-retest methodology was used to assess the reliability while Cronbach alpha was used to assess the internal consistency. Sensitivity to change was used to express the effect size index in the preintervention versus post-intervention score in patients with LUTS who underwent transurethral resection of the prostate. Results: For the control group and BPH group, the internal consistency was excellent and a high degree of internal consistency was observed for all seven items (Cronbach a= 0.86-0.98 and 0.90- 0.98, respectively). Test-retest correlation coefficients for all items were highly significant. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was high for the control (ICC = 0.93-0.99) and BPH group (ICC = 0.91-0.99). The sensitivity and specificity showed a high degree of sensitivity and specificity to the effects of treatment. A high degree of significance between baseline and post-treatment scores was observed across all seven items in the BPH group but not in the control group. Conclusions: The Mand-IPSS is a suitable, reliable, valid and sensitive instrument to measure clinical change in the Malaysian population.