Symptom scores and clinical measures in benign prostatic hyperplasia

Table 1 Study characteristics, correlation coefficients, and Fisher’s Z Transformation values for all 28 included studies¹

Meta-analysis	Ref.	Country	n	r	Fisher’s Z	SE	95%CI lower (r)	95%CI upper (r)
Meta-analysis 1: IPSS-quality of life (k = 5; n = 705)
IPSS-QoL	Roy et al[18], 2016	India	100	0.693	0.854	0.102	0.575	0.783
	Taneja et al[7], 2017	India	121	0.656	0.786	0.092	0.541	0.747
	Anyimba et al[3], 2023	Nigeria	170	0.760	0.996	0.077	0.688	0.817
	Nketiah et al[6], 2024	Ghana	256	0.541	0.606	0.063	0.448	0.622
	Timilsina et al[23], 2024	Nepal	58	0.910	1.528	0.135	0.852	0.946
Meta-analysis 2: Prostate volume-IPSS (k = 12; n = 1446)
PV-IPSS	Udeh et al[17], 2012	Nigeria	120	-0.004	-0.004	0.092	-0.183	0.176
	Awaisu et al[9], 2021	Nigeria	290	0.179	0.181	0.059	0.065	0.288
	Ngwa-Ebogo et al[24], 2023	Cameroon	45	0.410	0.436	0.154	0.132	0.628
	Hossain et al[25], 2020	Bangladesh	60	0.585	0.670	0.132	0.389	0.730
	Yadav et al[26], 2021	India	154	0.560	0.633	0.081	0.441	0.660
	Rananda et al[4], 2021	Indonesia	86	0.048	0.048	0.110	-0.166	0.257
	Ng et al[2], 2015	India	126	0.400	0.424	0.090	0.242	0.537
	Sadiq et al[27], 2024	Pakistan	45	0.437	0.469	0.154	0.165	0.647
	Maghfira et al[28], 2024	Indonesia	93	0.853	1.267	0.105	0.786	0.900
	Shah et al[11], 2024	Pakistan	158	0.779	1.043	0.080	0.709	0.834
	Almaasah et al[29], 2025	Indonesia	19	0.617	0.720	0.250	0.226	0.837
	Rehman et al[30], 2024	Pakistan	250	0.250	0.255	0.064	0.130	0.363
Meta-analysis 3: IPSS-post-void residual (k = 11; n = 2663)
IPSS-PVR	Ko et al[13], 2010	Korea	309	0.200	0.203	0.057	0.090	0.305
	Cakiroglu[31], 2013	Turkey	152	0.441	0.473	0.082	0.303	0.561
	Aisuodionoe-Shadrach et al[32], 2020	Nigeria	100	0.350	0.365	0.102	0.165	0.511
	Hamza et al[10], 2021	Nigeria	167	0.285	0.293	0.078	0.139	0.419
	Mbouché et al[1], 2022	Cameroon	103	0.000	0.000	0.100	-0.194	0.194
	Anyimba et al[3], 2023	Nigeria	170	0.490	0.536	0.077	0.367	0.597
	Apata et al[5], 2023	Nigeria	150	0.118	0.119	0.082	-0.043	0.273
	Kohler and Kausik[16], 2023	United States	1014	0.151	0.152	0.031	0.090	0.211
	Nketiah et al[6], 2024	Ghana	256	0.085	0.085	0.063	-0.038	0.205
	Shah et al[11], 2024	Pakistan	158	0.599	0.692	0.080	0.489	0.691
	Fazal et al[12], 2025	Pakistan	84	0.920	1.589	0.111	0.879	0.948

¹Anyimba et al[3], Nketiah et al[6], and Shah et al[11] appear in more than one meta-analysis, each reporting separate correlation coefficients for different outcome pairs within the same study.

R: Pearson/Spearman correlation coefficient; Fisher’s Z: Variance-stabilizing transformation computed as 0.5 × ln[(1 + r)/(1 − r)]; SE: Standard error of Fisher’s Z computed as 1/√(N − 3); 95% confidence interval bounds are on the r scale, back-transformed from Fisher’s Z. Negative r values indicate inverse correlations. CI: Confidence interval; IPSS: International Prostate Symptom Score; PV: Prostate volume; PVR: Post-void residual; QoL: Quality of life.