546 patients enrolled in a prospective study of patient treatment choices for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included a symptom index, two general measures of quality of life, and a condition-specific measure of the impact of BPH symptoms on patient quality of life. As expected, differences in symptoms of BPH were significantly associated with general measures of quality of life and the condition-specific impact score. However, the condition-specific impact score was more sensitive to differences in symptoms than the general measures. Hence, such measures are likely to be more responsive to treatment effects, may provide more power for statistical analysis, and hence should be considered along with general quality of life measures for use in treatment outcome studies.