Quality of life of urinary incontinent women

摘要

Introduction: Urinary incont inence in wo men, in reference to the International Co nt inence Society, is defined as an involuntary, uncontrollable, unwitting leakage o f urine causing sig nificant hygienic problems as well as physical and so cial discomfort. Purpose: To identify the major health problems of urinary incontinent women, the estimatio n of life quality det ermined by health in the aspect of physical and psycho log ical existence, social interaction and environment influence, and to evaluate t he patient's agilit y and co ping abilities in everyday life. Material and methods: The stud y was carried out at J. Sniadecki District Hospital and Medical University o f Bia.ystok Clinical Hospital in 201 2. The study included 107 urinary incont inent women, and 93 cont inent wo men formed the control group. The World Health Organizatio n Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) and King's Healt h Questio nnaire (KHQ) were used. Results: The evaluation of general satisfaction fro m the quality of life and healt h sat isfactio n carried out in the examined group shows significantly worse values as co mpared to the healthy group of women (p=0.02 and p=0.003, relatively). Moreover, the group of wo men examined as co mpared to co ntrols is charact erized by sig nificantly lower average results of the subject ive estimation of the quality o f life in the fo llowing aspects: physical (p=0.001), psycho logical (p=0.03), environmental (p=0.004), and social relations (p=0.002). A significant inverse co rrelat ion between the influence o f an illness on particular aspects o f existence t aken into acco unt in the KHQ questionnaire and the life qualit y level measured by the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was demonstrated. Conclusions: Women with urinary incont inence had lower scores of life quality. Urinary incontinence among wo men decreases physical act ivit y and negat ively affects their psycho logical and emot ional condit ions, as well as their professio nal and social activit y