A new University of Otago (Wellington) study shows nearly half of New Zealand women experience incontinence, but says they should not have to suffer in silence.
Researchers used data from the New Zealand Health Survey Adult Sexual and Reproductive Health module 2014-15, to estimate the prevalence of incontinence and explore its associations with age, body mass index (BMI), parity and ethnicity.
Co-author Prof Jean Hay-Smith said women found incontinence to be a taboo subject or embarrassing to talk about, and it lowered their quality of life.
Many planned their daily activities around dealing with it, stopped exercising, and some were socially isolated.
"Further, managing urinary incontinence with incontinence products is a substantial economic and environmental cost," she said.
"Women may believe urinary incontinence is part and parcel of childbearing or ageing.
"This belief, along with the apparent reluctance and lack of confidence in health professionals to ask about urinary incontinence, means that many women do not access any help or support when there are effective non-surgical and non-pharmaceutical treatments available."
The Sexual and Reproductive Health survey found, of the 2472 women with any incontinence, 41% had it less than monthly, 44% of them experienced it weekly, and 15% daily.
While it was most common in women aged 50 and over, incontinence was also prevalent in those aged 16-29 (21%).
"As our population ages, this means there will be more people with this condition.
"If this need isn’t met, then that creates further inequity in addressing the health needs of women.
"In addition, if urinary incontinence is not addressed in women under 75 years and these high rates continue, or increase after 75 years, then there are many more implications for older persons’ health services."
Prof Hay-Smith said there should be more public health messaging to remind women that incontinence was not inevitable, let them know they were not alone, and inform them of the options for improving symptoms and quality of life.
"Health professionals need help to be more confident to ask women about this condition at multiple points across their lifespan, and not wait for women to raise it.
"We also need to do a much better job of preventing urinary incontinence through enabling young women, pregnant women, perimenopausal women, and physically active women who engage in high impact activities, to care for their pelvic floor.
"And, given urinary incontinence affects women across their lifespan, and is more common with ageing, with diabetes, and obesity, we need a health system that is organised and resourced to support that need — not necessarily with expensive surgeries or drugs, but with people who know how to support women with evidence-based self-management that will help many of them," she said.
