Development of the Painful Periods Screening Tool for endometriosis

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Diagnostic delay is common in endometriosis. There is an unmet need for a symptom-based, patient-completed screening tool to facilitate discussions between patients and physicians about potential endometriosis symptoms. The objective of this study was to develop and assess the patient-completed Painful Periods Screening Tool (PPST) to assess the presence of potential endometriosis symptoms.

Methods: To develop and refine the PPST, a cross-sectional qualitative study was conducted with women with endometriosis and healthy controls. Following identification of potentially relevant concepts in the literature and input from clinical experts, a draft version of the PPST was tested during in-depth individual interviews with 16 women: 11 with endometriosis and 5 healthy controls.

Results: The six draft items of the PPST were refined iteratively in two rounds of interviews, and one item was deleted following the second set of interviews. All concepts included in the final five-item PPST were found to be relevant to women with endometriosis, and all 11 participants with endometriosis endorsed at least one of the items. No core symptoms of endometriosis were noted as missing from the PPST.

Conclusion: The PPST assesses the most important endometriosis-related symptoms and may help facilitate discussions between patients and physicians, promoting earlier diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Endometriosis
• Painful Periods Screening Tool
• patient-completed
• screening
• symptom

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Mary Lou Ballweg of the Endometriosis Association for her insights during development of the screening tool and her insightful review of this manuscript. Ms. Ballweg is a paid consultant for AbbVie.

Geolocation information

This study was conducted in the United States.

Declaration of interest

This research was performed under a contract between AbbVie and RTI Health Solutions. D.B. DiBenedetti, C. Ervin, and E. Evans are employees of RTI Health Solutions, which was funded by AbbVie to conduct this project. A.M. Soliman is an employee of AbbVie and may own AbbVie stocks/stock options. C.C. Coddington, S.K. Agarwal, E.S. Surrey, and H.S. Taylor are consultants for AbbVie and may own AbbVie stocks/stock options. Medical writing services were provided by Kate Lothman of RTI Health Solutions. Medical writing services were funded by AbbVie, Inc. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by AbbVie. AbbVie participated in data analysis; in interpretation of data; and in review, approval of, and decision to submit the manuscript.