Prevalence study of stress urinary incontinence in women who perform high-impact exercises

Stress urinary incontinence is a frequent complaint in medical offices and studies have shown that women who practice high impact sports develop its symptoms.

To evaluate the prevalence of stress urinary incontinence in women who attend gyms and perform high impact exercises and correlate it with women who do not attend gyms.

Prospective comparative study in which 488 nulliparous women of normal weight were divided into a Study Group, composed of women who attended gyms, and a Comparative Group, composed of women who did not attend gyms. Three questionnaires were used for the evaluation of stress urinary incontinence and the results of the ICIQ-SF questionnaire were used to compare the groups.

There was a significant difference between groups on the ICIQ-SF. The average in the Study Group was 1.68 (+ 3.46) and in the Comparative Group the average was 1.02 (+ 2.69) (p = 0.006).

Women who attend gym and perform high impact exercises have a higher prevalence of urinary incontinence symptoms, independent of the exercise modality, than women who do not perform any high impact exercise.