Effect of Pelvic Floor Muscle Exercises on Severity of Urinary Incontinence among Elderly Female Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Prevention of urinary incontinence at primary level is a significant task for all health care workers. Current treatments include many behavioral modalities among which PFME is one of the effective strategies. In the present setting there is lack of practice of PFME as a preventive and curative strategy among elderly females. Objective: To compare the severity of urinary incontinence before and after pelvic floor muscle exercise, to determine the association of severity of urinary incontinence with selected baseline variables. Methodology: Quasi experimental one group pre-test post-test research design with purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from 35 elderly females with urinary incontinence in IPD, Senior Citizen OPD and OBG OPD of selected hospital, Bangalore. QUID (Questionnaire for Urinary Incontinence Diagnosis) was used to identify the type of urinary incontinence and ICIQ UI SF (International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form) was used to assess the severity of urinary incontinence. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics on the basis of objectives and hypothesis of the study. Frequency, percentage, mean, standard devation of the data was analysed in terms of descriptive statistics and paired t test, independent t-test and ANOVA test of inferential statistics were used to assess the level of significance. Result: There was a significant reduction of mean severity score of pre-test from 12.23±2.03 to 9.89±1.8 at p value<0.001. Mean of three content areas of UI (frequency, amount and impact of urine leakage) reduced from 3.14±0.69 to 2.34±0.68, 3.26±1.09 to 2.49±0.85 and 5.83±1.01 to 5.06±0.93 at p-value <0.001. There was no statistically significant association between any of the baseline variables with severity of urinary incontinence. Conclusion: The health professionals need to focus more on providing training and positive reinforcement to these patients as PFME is one of the most common mode of management for patients with urinary incontinence.