Background Existing scales for assessing faecal incontinence have not been validated against clinical assessment, or with regard to reproducibility. They also fail to take into account faecal urgency, and the use of antidiarrhoeal medications.

Aims To establish the validity, and sensitivity to change, of existing scales and a newly designed incontinence scale.

Results (1) Assessments by two independent clinicians correlated well. All four scales and a diary card correlated highly and significantly with the clinical impression, with the new scale reaching the highest correlation (r=0.79, p<0.001). (2) All except one score changed significantly in response to surgical treatment; the new scale showed the greatest change, at the highest level of significance (p=0.004), and correlated best with the clinicians’ assessment of change (r=0.94, p<0.001).

Conclusions Existing scales for the assessment of faecal incontinence correlate well with careful clinical impression of severity, and serve as useful and reproducible measures for comparison of patients and treatments. A newly devised scale has shown high clinical validity and utility.