To explore associations among symptoms of urinary incontinence, severity of symptoms, and measures of psychosocial health that may be assessed during a well-woman screening examination and the possible contribution of these variables to the relationship satisfaction of partnered midlife women living with urinary incontinence.
Exploratory correlational design using self-report questionnaires.
Community recruitment by posted fliers, advertisements, and social media.
Partnered women, ages 45 to 65 years, with urinary incontinence (N = 57).
Self-report measures of severity of incontinence symptoms, relationship satisfaction, self-concept/emotional health (self-esteem, body image, depression, anxiety), and relationship factors (sexual quality of life, incontinence-related communication). Data were analyzed using Spearman rho correlation with an exploration of the contribution of study factors to relationship satisfaction through standard multiple regression.
The severity of urinary incontinence symptoms had no significant correlation with scores on relationship satisfaction or psychosocial health. Measures of self-concept/emotional health and relationship factors were significantly correlated with each other (rs = .40-.75, p < .01) and with relationship satisfaction (rs = .35-.71, p < .05). Preliminary exploration of the contribution of study factors to relationship satisfaction through exploratory regression analysis showed unique contributions from sexual quality of life (18.7%, p < .001) and depression (8.7%, p = .004).
Midlife women with urinary incontinence, regardless of symptom severity, might benefit from screening for poorer sexual quality of life and mild depression symptoms because these two study factors significantly contributed to poorer intimate relationship satisfaction among this study's participants.
Journal of obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing : JOGNN. 2017 May 04 [Epub]
Lori Saiki, Robin Meize-Grochowski