Elsevier

Maturitas

Volume 64, Issue 4, 20 December 2009, Pages 246-248
Maturitas

Short communication
A longitudinal investigation of the impact of typology of urinary incontinence on quality of life during midlife: Results from a British prospective study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2009.09.015Get rights and content
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Abstract

Using prospective data from 983 British women born in 1946, the study aims to describe the profiles of symptoms of stress, urge, and severe incontinence, and to relate these to change in quality of life. Based on the longitudinal patterns of symptoms experienced, four groups of women were defined: ‘low symptom’, ‘onset’, ‘recovering’, and ‘chronic’. Childhood enuresis was associated with being in the ‘chronic’ group for urge and severe incontinence. Women in the ‘recovering’ group for stress incontinence experienced an improvement in the physical health domain (regression coefficient (95% CI): 0.1(0.02, 0.18)) compared with women without symptoms. This relationship existed beyond the effects of ageing, menopausal status, current life stress, and reproductive, lifestyle, and social factors. More research is needed to understand the mechanism that link childhood enuresis to being in the ‘chronic’ group for urge and severe incontinence.

Keywords

Urinary incontinence symptoms
Menopause
Quality of life
Latent class analysis

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