Medical and psychosocial factors conditioning development of stress urinary incontinence (SUI)

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is the most frequent type of urinary incontinence among adult women.

The objective of the study was evaluation of the effect of environmental, systemic and obstetrical factors on the development of stress urinary incontinence, and diagnosing and determination of areas in which changes could be made.

The study covered 313 females aged 30-75 living in the Lublin Region. The respondents were divided into two groups according to the clinical diagnosis, occurrence of symptoms of SUI or lack thereof: Group I - women with SUI symptoms (119), Group II - women without SUI (194). A diagnostic survey was conducted with the use of a self-designed research instrument based on the Gaudenz questionnaire, data from relevant literature and the 'competent judges' test. The following statistical tests were used to compare two structure indicators (fraction, frequency); chi-square test and t-Student test. Statistical analysis was performed by means of STATISTICA 9 (StatSoft) software.

Statistically significant differences were found between the group of patients with SUI and the control group, with respect to the number of deliveries and their duration. The study showed that there is a statistically higher probability of the development of SUI in the case of surgical delivery, or natural childbirth of a baby with a birth weight of 4000 g or more. The study showed that hard physical work and past gynaecological surgeries are risk factors of urinary incontinence. Barriers of a psychosocial nature were also found (feeling of shame and embarrassment accompanying disclosure of the SUI), which minimized the respondents' participation in urinary incontinence prophylactic actions.