What is the impact of post‐radical prostatectomy urinary incontinence on everyday quality of life? Linking Pad usage and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short‐Form (ICIQ‐SF) for a COMBined definition (PICOMB definition)

Aims To identify the definition for urinary continence (UC) after radical prostatectomy (RP) which reflects best patients' perception of quality of life (QoL). Methods Continence was prospectively assessed in 634 patients, 12 months after RP using the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short‐Form (ICIQ‐SF) and the number of pads employed in a 24‐hour period (pad usage). We used the one‐way ANOVA technique with posthoc pairwise comparisons according to Scheffé's method (homogeneous subsets) for assessing the degree of QoL deficit related to urinary incontinence (UI). Results The continence prevalence is 64.4%, 74.1%, 88.3%, and 35.8% using “0 pads,” “1 safety pad,” “1 pad,” and “ICIQ score 0” definitions, respectively. Pad usage is moderately strongly associated with ICIQ 1, 2, and 3 (ρ = 0.744, 0.677, and 0.711, respectively; p