Some sociodemographic, medical and obstetric risk factors associated with urinary stress incontinence in premenopausal women : a hospital-based study

الملخص EN

Background : Urinary stress incontinence (USI) is a very common disease among women which affects their quality of life.

Several studies about UI in elderly women were published but only few studies have been published in young adult and middle-aged women.

Objective : To examine the association of some sociodemographic, medical and obstetric risk factors with UI in premenopausal women attending the gynecologic clinics at Al-Azhar university hospitals.

Subjects and Methods : A cross sectional study conducted in,Al-Azhar university hospitals (El-Hussein and Bab-El Sharia hospitals), Cairo, Egypt, for a period of 5 months starting December 2005 on (547) women aged from 16 to 50 years attending the gynecologic clinics.

Premenopausal women with USI during the study period were assessed to establish the relationship with the studied risk factors (sociodemographic, medical and obstetric factors).

Women with USI were the study cases and those without USI were considered the controls.

Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used.

Results : The percentage of USI among the studied women was 34.

2 %.

We found some of the studied risk factors to be positively associated with UI.

These factors included increasing age, overweight and obesity, non skilled work, multiparity and recurrent urinary tract infections.

The highest observed risks were for non skilled workers (OR = 5.

4 ; 95 % CI = 2.

55-11.

5) and those of parity 5 or more (OR = 5.

10 ; 95 % CI = 2.

52-10.

3).

On the other hand, we found that factors which decreasesignificantly the risk of USI, were: education above the basic level, moderate and high family income, professional and skilled works, birth spacing of more than 2 years, and cesarean section delivery.

The lowest risks were for women reporting more than 2 years of birth spacing (OR = 0.

10 ; 95 % CI = 0.

05-0.

20), and those reported cesarean section deliveries (OR = 0.15 ; 95 % CI= 0.

05-0.

30).

Conclusions: Urinary stress incontinence is a considerable health problem in premenopausal women attending the outpatient gynecologic clinics.

Various sociodemographic, medical and obstetric related factors have appositive correlation with the development of USI .