A simple patient-administered test for objective quantitation of the symptom of urinary incontinence.

A pad-weighing test for the quantitation of urinary loss, performed by the patient during 48 hours of daily activities, was evaluated. All patients (n = 46, age 21-73 years) were able to perform the test. The precision of their weighing was good and the reproducibility of the results equal or better than that of previously published tests. There was no correlation between the results of the 48-hour test and a standardized one-hour test, indicating that these two tests measure different aspects of incontinence. Of the two tests the 48-hour test likely gives a more valid measure of the symptom of urinary incontinence. Other advantages over the standardized short term tests are that no hospital staff is involved in the testing and that the test is independent of the physical capacity of the patient.