Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification (POPQ) system teaching practices among obstetrics/gynecology (ob/gyn) and urology residents in the United States.
Methods: Anonymous Web-based survey was e-mailed to the residency program directors/coordinators of all urology and ob/gyn programs in the United States with a request to forward it to all their residents. Fisher exact and z tests for proportions and multivariate regression analysis examining factors associated with POPQ system use were used in the statistical analysis.
Results: Sixty percent (45/75) of urology and 78.9% (105/133) of responding ob/gyn residents (P = 0.006) reported having used the POPQ system, whereas 42.7% and 59.4% of them, respectively, reported current use (P = 0.03). The latter also reported more protected educational time (P < 0.001), more urogynecologists in their programs (P = 0.032), and learning more frequently from drawings (P = 0.025). Opinions about the routine clinical and scientific usefulness of POPQ system and the perceived difficulty in learning it did not vary between groups. After performing multivariate logistic regression analysis, the presence of a fellowship, the number of subspecialists in the program, and the number of POPQ system teaching sessions were the studied variables found to contribute independently to the residents' use of that system.
Conclusions: Obstetrics/gynecology residents use POPQ system more frequently than do urology residents. This could be related to differences in teaching practices between urology and ob/gyn programs.