Prevalence of urinary incontinence in women with osteoporosis

To investigate the prevalence and frequency of urinary incontinence in women presenting to a specialist osteoporosis clinic.

Participants included 412 female patients aged 22 to 94 years (mean 62 years) presenting to a hospital-based specialist multidisciplinary osteoporosis clinic over one year. The presence or absence of urinary incontinence, urgency without leakage, type of symptoms (stress, urge, mixed) and frequency of urinary incontinence were recorded.

Sixty-seven percent of patients (277/412) reported some symptoms of urinary incontinence, 23% reported no symptoms and 10% reported urgency without any leakage. Of those who reported some urinary incontinence, 51% reported symptoms of stress incontinence, urgency, and urge incontinence. Almost 40% of all patients (163/412) and 59% of those with any urinary incontinence (163/277) reported leakage at least once per week.

The prevalence of at least weekly urinary incontinence in this population is much higher than that reported in studies of other older adult female populations. There is also a high prevalence of incontinence accompanied by urgency in women with osteoporosis. Based on these results and because urinary incontinence can limit a woman's ability to be physically active and increase the risk of falls and fractures, screening for incontinence should be a routine part of osteoporosis management. Clinicians seeing patients for osteoporosis should consider the presence of incontinence when prescribing exercise for bone health and fall prevention.