OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association between urinary incontinence and female sexual function in a non-clinical population.
METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 2159 female employees of two hospitals.
RESULTS: Of the 883 sexually active participants, pure stress urinary incontinence was reported in 18.3%, pure urge urinary incontinence in 6.8%, mixed urinary incontinence in 15.1% and no urinary incontinence in 59.8%. The prevalence of female sexual difficulty, defined by the Female Sexual Function Index total score ā¤ 26.55, was 52.0%, 56.1%, 54.3% and 42.2%, respectively (Pā<ā0.05). After adjustment of age, menstrual status, length of marriage, having children and relationship with the partner, all types of urinary incontinence showed a significant association with female sexual difficulty with an odds ratio of 1.6-1.8. Taking into consideration the individual domains, pure urge urinary incontinence was a risk factor for decreased sexual lubrication and more sexual pain, and mixed urinary incontinence was a risk factor for less sexual satisfaction, whereas pure stress urinary incontinence was not related to a difficulty in individual domains.
CONCLUSIONS: Stress urinary incontinence and urge urinary incontinence are associated with general impairment of female sexual function to a mild degree. Only urge urinary incontinence is related to sexual difficulty in specific domains including sexual lubrication and sexual pain.
Written by:
Su CC, Sun BY, Jiann BP. Are you the author?
Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Yuan's General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Reference: Int J Urol. 2014 Aug 29. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1111/iju.12610
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25170688