Pelvic organ prolapse at maternity teaching hospital in Erbil city, its prevalence and risk factors

Abstract EN

The present study is carried out to describe the prevalence rate of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) among women in Erbil city, to compare the prevalence between normal vaginal delivery and cesarean section and to find out the risk factors associated with POP.

This study is a cross-sectional observational study carried out in Maternity Teaching Hospital in Erbil city, Kurdistan region, north of Iraq from 1st April 2015 to 1st April 2016.

It includes 510 married women aged between 15-80 years both nulliparous and multiparous, excluding pregnant women and those in perpurium period in addition to those who underwent previous POP surgery.

The data collected by using standardized Pelvic Organ Prolapsed - Quantitification system (POP-Q system) and the results were analyzed using SPSS computer software version 23.0, Chi-square test; the results were considered significant at p<0.05.

The prevalence of POP was 90.2% in general.

The prevalence among those who have vaginal births were 92.1%, while those who had caesarean sections were 77.3%.

Generally among those 90.2% of the cases, who have prolapse, nearly half of the cases (52.9%) have both anterior and posterior vaginal wall prolapse and the 2nd stage was found to be the most common stage (39.2%).

Findings of the study showed that POP is very common among women and is more so among those women who delivered vaginally than those delivered by cesarean section; those who delivered by cesarean section have a fewer degree of prolapse.

The most important risk factors were .

age, a high number of vaginal deliveries, occupation, history of an overweight baby, short birth gap space, history of chronic diseases and low social economic state