Impact of urinary incontinence on quality of Life of women in a community sample in three districts of Sri Lanka - A cross sectional study

Abstract

Wellbeing of a person includes a good quality of life (QOL), which can be perceived and mediated by a many factors. Although UI has no impact on mortality it is one of the conditions that can significantly affect a person’s QOL. This paper aims to investigate the impact of UI on the women’s QOL. Methods: This study is a community based cross-sectional study performed in three districts of Sri Lanka targetting the population of women who were above 18 years of age. A sample of 2310 women was selected for this study in cluster basis. A cluster was a Public Health Midwife area, and from each cluster 15 women were selected. An interviewer administered questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic factors, medical and Obstetric history, and the King’s Health Questionnaire (KHQ) was used. A trend test, Jonckheere-Terpstra test was performed and significance was set at 5%. Results: Majority of the women in all three districts felt that felt that UI had no impact on their general health. QOL showed an impact on the trend of severity on stress incontinence and on the severity trend on urge incontinence, which was statistically significant with each domain namely role limitations, physical limitations, social limitations, personal relationships, emotional problems and sleep/energy issues. Coping strategies like wear sanitary pads to avoid getting wet with urine (5.4%), limiting their fluid intake at all times (11%) were also observed. Conclusions: The negative effect of UI on QOL needs to be addressed targeting those at higher risk. Awareness on treatment needs to be addressed, as all QOL domains were affected by UI.