Prevalence of urinary incontinence in older Korean women

Abstract

Worldwide prevalence of any type urinary incontinence (UI) in women 20 years and over is estimated to be over 275 million in 2013 and the 4th International Consultation on Incontinence expects it to increase to over 300 million in 2018. While UI in women is considered to be an aging and public health issue with global implications, most research cited in the UI literature comes from English language sources. The absence of information from many Asian and other countries may be due to reliance on scientific reports written in English by editorial policies, authors of systematic literature reviews and other researchers. Moreover, the financial costs and time constraints associated with translation and dissemination of findings into English language journals could act as dissemination barriers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the current state of knowledge about prevalence and correlates of UI in Korean older women from non‐English language sources. Twelve research articles, two research monographs and one master's thesis, and data on UI abstracted from South Korea's 2008 National Health Insurance Cooperation Reports were reviewed in full. The prevalence of UI in women 60 years and older ranged from 11·2% to 76·3%. Personal, physical and psychological factors were found to be associated with UI including age, income and educational level, presence of comorbidities, body mass index, depression, anxiety and cognitive impairment. There was little difference between rural and urban dwelling older women in help‐seeking behavior: 93.8% rural and 90.5% urban dwelling older women sought no help for their incontinence. Inclusion of reports from non‐English sources is considered as an important contribution to better understanding of the worldwide epidemiology of UI in older women.