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Validation of the Wexner scale in a Hebrew-speaking population

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Abstract

Introduction

The Cleveland Clinic Incontinence Score, known as the Wexner Score (WS), is a simple, disease-specific questionnaire for anal incontinence (AI) assessment. We aimed to translate and validate a Hebrew version of the WS.

Methods

Between November 2018 and December 2019, the WS was back translated and reviewed by a multidisciplinary pelvic floor team. The questionnaire was filled out by patients visiting the urogynecology and surgical pelvic floor clinics. Two weeks after completion, the patients were contacted using telephone surveys to assess the test-retest reliability examination. Construct validity was assessed by comparing the WS to the Colorectal-Anal Distress Inventory 8 (CRADI-8), a part of the validated Hebrew version of the Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory questionnaire (PFDI-20).

Results

Overall, 91 female patients completed the WS questionnaire. Eighty-five percent (n = 78) responded to the re-test WS questionnaire. A high intraclass coefficient of 0.87 was found in the WS total score, with a range from 0.82 to 0.86 for its subscales. A significant positive relationship between the Hebrew versions of the WS and CRADI-8 scores was established (r = 0.66, p < 0.0001).

Conclusion

A new, Hebrew-translated version of the WS is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing AI.

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Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Raanan Meyer and Menachem Alcalay contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel, Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Hashomer, 52621, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Raanan Meyer, Menachem Alcalay & Talia Friedman

  2. The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Urogynecology Unit, Baruch Padeh-Poria Medical Center, Tiberias, Israel

    Menachem Alcalay

  3. The Faculty of Medicine at Galille, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Menachem Alcalay

  4. The Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Rawan Jamal

  5. The Department of Surgery and Transplantation, the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel, Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Nir Horesh, Roy Nadler & Edward Ram

  6. The Department of Gastroenterology, the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel, Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Dan Carter

Authors
  1. Raanan Meyer
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  2. Menachem Alcalay
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  3. Rawan Jamal
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  4. Nir Horesh
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  5. Talia Friedman
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  6. Roy Nadler
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  7. Dan Carter
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  8. Edward Ram
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Contributions

R Meyer: Project development, data collection, manuscript writing.

M Alcalay: Project development, data collection, manuscript writing.

R Jamal: Data collection, manuscript revision.

N Horesh: Data collection, manuscript writing.

T Friedman: Data collection, manuscript revision.

R Nadler: Manuscript writing.

D Carter: Data collection, manuscript revision.

E Ram: Project development, data collection, manuscript writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raanan Meyer.

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Meyer, R., Alcalay, M., Jamal, R. et al. Validation of the Wexner scale in a Hebrew-speaking population. Int Urogynecol J 31, 2583–2587 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04400-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04400-7

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