Measuring urgency in clinical practice

Introduction The study of urinary urgency is challenging for a number of reasons, including our lack of understanding of the normal physiology of urinary sensation and the pathophysiology of abnormal sensation. Issues with nomenclature and lack of agreement about the nature of the experience of normal and abnormal urinary sensation add to this difficulty. Materials and methods Review of published literature and critique. Results Currently available tools for measurement of urgency include validated questionnaires that describe the severity of urgency and its impact on quality of life, modified bladder diaries, body maps of urgency, and measures of urinary sensation during filling cystometry. All these provide some information about the experience of urinary urgency, but no single measure currently captures its multidimensional nature. Conclusions Measurement of urgency in clinical practice and indeed the optimal treatment strategy has yet to come of age.