Perceptions, representations and logics of action of urinary incontinence in institutionalised elderly people: a...

Urinary incontinence (UI) is a major public health problem. It affects many institutionalised elderly people. In the literature, the phenomenon is well defined. Its frequency, risk factors, individual and social costs, as well as the different therapeutic approaches, are described. However, there are few publications on its representations, both from the point of view of the patient and that of the carers. However, the literature shows that a better understanding of the social representations of this phenomenon could be a vector for improving care. We aim at understanding the perception of UI, to model its representations and to understand and characterise the logics of action in terms of protection.

This will be a mixed-method concurrent study with a quantitative and a qualitative component. Data will be collected through 100 semistructured interviews, 8 focus groups and 10 000 surveys from 4 populations: institutionalised elderly people, caregivers, carers and individuals from the general population. The qualitative part will be analysed both manually and with ATLAS.Ti software, which will be used to centralise and organise all qualitative data collected. For the analysis of the quantitative part, a descriptive statistical analysis and a logistic regression type association will be carried out. These analyses will be enforced using R software. Then, an overlay and combination of quantitative and qualitative information for the triangulation analytical approach will be carried out. The study started in August 2021 and will continue until June 2022.

The study protocol was approved by the Descartes ethics and research committee on 1 June 2021, with the IRB number 00012021-43. The findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international conferences.

This protocol was registered with the Research Registry on 12 July 2021 and is numbered researchregistry6965.