Instrumentos de medida para a área de saúde da mulher: significância clínica de questionários e diagnóstico de acurácia da função dos músculos do assoalho pélvico ; Measuring instruments for women's health: clinical significance of questionnaires and diagnostic accuracy of pelvic floor muscle function

Introduction: Although there are previous studies looking at different proprieties (i.e., reliability, validity, internal consistency, and others) of outcome measures for several conditions, few researchers are dedicated to developing and refining the methodology to understand the clinical significance or the diagnostic accuracy of outcomes related to urinary incontinence (UI) and pelvic floor muscles (PFM) function, respectively. In the era of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is crucial that research supports clinical practice and clinical significance of relevant outcome measures is evaluated. Objective: To increase the evidence regarding measurements proprieties that can be used in the women’s health field. Materials and Methods: This project was conducted in two steps: the first study (Article 1) was a systematic review that synthetized all Minimal Important Differences (MIDs) of outcomes related to UI in the literature, and the second study (Article 2) was a cross-sectional study that analyzed which variables from the PeritronTM manometer could differentiate women with/without a weak/strong PFM contraction and determine their cut-off points for this discrimination. Article 1 was conducted as the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) recommendations. Five online databases were consulted (Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus) in order to find patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) related to female UI outcomes. The credibility and certainty of the evidence were assessed for MIDs reported by anchor-based methods. Absolute MIDs (mean difference associated with minimal improvement) were calculated for each study separately according to the mean change of the group of participants by checking the original papers and by extracting the mean change of the group of participants that reported a slight improvement, according to the anchor applied during data collection, when possible. The quality of the evidence was assessed by the Grading of Recommendations, ...