Pelvic Floor Disability Index (PFDI-20)
What It Measures
The PFDI-20 asks a woman whether she is experiencing specific pelvic floor symptoms, and if so, how much they bother her. That two-part structure matters — the same symptom can be a minor nuisance to one person and the reason another has stopped leaving the house.
Twenty questions cover three areas, each drawn from a longer inventory. The Urinary Distress Inventory covers leaking, urgency, and difficulty emptying. The Colorectal-Anal Distress Inventory covers bowel symptoms including incontinence and straining. The Pelvic Organ Prolapse Distress Inventory covers bulging, pressure, and heaviness. Each subscale scores 0 to 100 and they sum to a total out of 300, over the past three months.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The questionnaire is reproduced widely in clinical resources and trial protocols without a posted fee.
Learn More: Each subscale can be used on its own: a clinician working only on urinary symptoms can administer the UDI-6 alone. Note that the PFDI-20's correlation with objective prolapse staging is strong for the prolapse subscale but weak for the urinary and bowel subscales — the tool measures distress, not anatomy.