Urinary incontinence among female patients attending a selected public hospital in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Background:Urinary incontinence is a frequent public health problem with negative social consequences, particularly for women. Women are much more susceptible to urinary incontinence than men. Female susceptibility is the result of anatomical, social, economic and cultural factors. Methods:A crosssectional study was conducted to find out the factors related to urinary incontinence, distribution of types of incontinence among female patients and their health care seeking behavior and socio-demographic characteristics among 121 adult female patients who attended the outpatient department of Gynae and Obstetrics department and Urology department of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital during the period of January to June 2016. Data werecollected through face to face interview.Results:The mean age of the respondents was 43.42 years and the mean monthly income of the respondents was 17409.09 taka. Little above nine-tenths (91.7%) of the respondents were Muslim and the majority of the respondents (47.9%) were living in pacca house. More than seven-tenths (73.6%) of the respondents were married and over 35% of the respondents were illiterate. Among the respondents about 42.1% of them had pressure type of incontinence, followed by mixed incontinence (27.3%). Over 65% had some complication during delivery and little above six-tenths (61.2%) had gynecological problems.Conclusions:Female urinary incontinence is a frequent and a major embarrassing healthcare problem in Bangladesh. Patients who had complications during labor, having multipara, recurrent UTI, gynecological problem such as uterine prolapse, urethral injury, had high percentage of urinary incontinence. Patients with urinary incontinence should be encouraged to seek treatment early as the problem can be treated.