Prevalence and incidence of urinary incontinence in the elderly: a longitudinal study in South Australia / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To identify the prevalence, incidence and trend of urinary incontinence in the elderly over a two-year period.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We randomly selected 4187 elderly people using the State Electoral Data Base in South Australia. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in 1992 with a response rate of 53.4%. The following two surveys were conducted 12 and 24 months later. A total of 2087 elderly people completed all three surveys.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Urge incontinence had a higher prevalence rate, with 36.6% to 41.6% of the elderly having at least an occasional problem (with 7.5% to 9.6% having problems often), compared to 23.4% to 28.8% having at least an occasional problem with stress incontinence (with 3.3% to 5.0% having problems often). Combined incontinence and urge incontinence were more common than stress incontinence alone. The incidence rates of urge incontinence and stress incontinence were 19.8% (with 3.1% often) and 14.5% (with 1.9% often), respectively. The trends toward incontinence during the two-year period indicated increasing trends in the elderly.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Urinary incontinence is an important health problem in the elderly and our data show that it has an increasing trend for future.</p>