Urinary incontinence frequency and affecting factors in women 18 years and over

Abstract

Introduction: Urinary incontinence(UI) is a complicated condition that affects women of all ages, is common, affects life negatively, and occurs for many reasons. It does not only have a medical problem for women but also affects the quality of life defined as physical, psychological, economic and social well-being. In our study, it was aimed to evaluate the frequency of urinary incontinence and the affecting factors in women aged 18 and over.Methods: 212 female patients aged between 18-85 who applied to Cemil Tascioglu City Hospital Family Medicine Polyclinics were included in this study. Those patients were divided into two groups: urinary incontinent and continent. General poll form, ICIQ-SF were interrogated. In general poll form, medical story about demographic data, personal history, family history, additional diseases, UI risk factors was interrogated. Dates of study were evaluated in the sense of meaningfulness by Shapiro Wilk test, Mann Whitney U test, Pearson Ki-Kare test, Fisher’s Exact Ki-Kare test.Results: Number of incontinent and continent cases was 111 and 101, respectively. So, the frequency of UI was found to be 52.4%. Average age of incontinent and continent cases was 51.07±11.80 and 43.50±12.80 respectively. 37.7% of UI cases had urgent-type, 12.3% of UI cases had stress-type and 30.2% had mixed-type UI. Increase in body mass index (p<0.001), low level of education (p<0.001), curettage (p:0.014), menopause (p<0.001), giving birth to relatively big babies (p:0.048), hypertension (p:0.001), diabetes mellitus (p:0.038), constipation (p:0.042), genital prolapsus (p:0.008) were meaningfully higher in the incontinent group.Conclusion: In our study; it was found that urinary incontinence rate increased with increasing age. The vast majority of women see this as a result of being a woman and aging and they do not consult a doctor. In our study, we found that 86.8% of women with urinary incontinence did not consult a doctor. Most of the individuals with urinary incontinence can be recognized and treated effectively by their family physicians in primary care. Therefore, family physicians should identify the problem of urinary incontinence in patients who apply to outpatient clinics, identify risk factors, define and treat them.