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Updated: Mar 7, 2026

Psychophysiological Stress Assessment Using Biofeedback
Published on: July 31, 2009
Outpatient biofeedback in addition to home pelvic floor muscle training for stress urinary incontinence: a randomized
Fátima Faní Fitz1, Liliana Stüpp1, Thaís Fonseca da Costa1
1Department of Gynaecology, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Aims:
To test if biofeedback (BF) added to pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) increases the frequency of home exercises performed by women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI).
Methods:
72 incontinent women were randomized to BF (outpatient BF + home PFMT) or PFMT (outpatient PFMT + home PFMT) groups.
Assessments:
baseline, after 3 months of supervised treatment, at 9-month follow-up (after six additional months of home PFMT only).
Primary Outcome:
frequency of monthly exercises sets performed (exercise diary) after 3-month treatment.
Secondary Outcomes:
adherence, urinary symptoms, severity and cure of SUI (pad test <2 g leakage), muscle function, quality of life, and subject cure (satisfaction report with no desire for different treatment) at the two time-points.
Statistical Analyses:
ANOVA and Student's t-test with 5% cut-off for significance.
Results:
It was observed similar frequency of monthly home exercises sets performed by BF (67.9 out of 82) and PFMT (68.2 out of 82) groups at 3 months. Secondarily, equal satisfaction, but superior objective cure of SUI for BF group after 3-month treatment (P = 0.018; OR: 3.15 [95% CI: 1.20-8.25]). At 9-month follow-up, the adherence to home exercises was similar (around 50%) and significantly dropped in both groups compared to the 3-month results (around 85%). No difference was detected in the objective and subjective cure of SUI between the groups after 9 months. Both therapies similarly improved the muscle function and quality of life during the study (P < 0.005).
Conclusions:
Adjunct BF did not increase the frequency of home exercises performed by SUI patients.
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