Does the choice of pelvic organ prolapse treatment influence subjective pelvic-floor related quality of life?

The relationship between pelvic organ prolapse (POP) treatment and subjective pelvic-floor related quality of life (QoL) was examined. 130 postmenopausal women with symptomatic POP were included: 45 % (59/130) were treated conservatively with pessary and 55 % (71/130) underwent pelvic floor surgery. All participants answered the validated German pelvic floor questionnaire at the time of baseline examination, as well as three months later. Our results demonstrated a significant improvement regarding mean score in the domains “prolapse” (p = 0.001) and “sexual function” (p = 0.001) three months after prolapse surgery, whereas in the pessary group only the score in the “prolapse” domain improved (p < 0.001). When comparing the two treatment arms after three months, patients reported a significant advancement regarding their “sexual function” domain in the surgery group (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, univariate analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between “prolapse” domain score (correlation coefficient = 0.0001) as well as “bladder” domain score (correlation coefficient