Abstract
BackgroundUrinary Incontinence (involuntary loss of urine) is a highly prevalent problem among women with profound effects on their quality of life. Patients tend to conceal their problems and avoid seeking medical help, which results in their prolonged illness and psychological depression. Only a few researchers have focused on finding out the characteristics of incontinent women with prolonged treatment denial. These women's shared features can serve as predictors of treatment delay; screening the incontinent patients for these predictors can point out the susceptible women with delayed help-seeking behaviour who need in-depth counselling and support for their treatment. This cross-sectional study was designed to investigate the predictors of treatment delays of urinary Incontinence among Pakistani women.Methods We performed this survey at Lady Willingdon Hospital outdoor from july1to Dec 31, 2019. We randomly selected one-hundred and six women with urinary incontinence from the gynaecology outdoor to fill the study Performa(sample size calculated with Raosoft, sample size calculator, Inc 2004). The Performa included risk factors of incontinence: demographic features, psychosocial effects of incontinence, the logic behind treatment delay, and the Incontinence Questionnaire UI-short form for incontinence characteristics. We evaluated predictors by analyzing shared risk factors of treatment delay by regression analysis (IBM SPSS statistics 20; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). ResultsThe mean age of participants was 56.11±11.24years (30-77years). Treatment delay ranged from 1-30years; about half of the participants (48.1%) reported >3-year delay. The shared risk factors of treatment-delay were elderly age (OR=1.163; CI:1.075-1.259), embarrassment (OR = 8.15;CI:2.117-31.382), lower subjective severity of symptoms (OR=.316;CI:133-.978) and stress incontinence (OR=8.09;CI:1.87-35).ConclusionIn this cross-sectional survey of urinary incontinent women, elderly age, embarrassment, lower subjective severity of symptoms, and stress incontinence were predictors of treatment-delay among Pakistani women. Trial registrationThis study had ethical approval from King Edward Medical University and registered retrospectively at Clinical trials.gov with reg #NCT04470700 on 13-07-2020.
The prevalence and risk factors of urinary incontinence amongst Palestinian women with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study
