Objectives: To compare the impact of the type of urinary incontinence on women's quality of life. Methods: A retrospective evaluation was conducted on the medical records of 77 incontinent women who underwent physical therapy treatment between February 2005 and October 2006. Based on the urodynamic test data, the women were classified into three groups: stress urinary incontinence (SUI), overactive bladder (OB) and mixed urinary incontinence (MUI). The subjects' history was taken, the women provided demographic data and they answered the King's Health Questionnaire, which is a specific questionnaire for assessing the quality of life among individuals with urinary incontinence. Results: Most of the patients (44%) had MUI. The patients affected by OB were significantly older than the patients in the other groups. The negative impact of incontinence on quality of life (General Health Perception domain) and lifestyle was significantly greater among the women affected by MUI than among the patients in the other groups. Conclusion: This study indicated that the negative impact of incontinence on quality of life was greater among patients with MUI.Key words: urinary incontinence; quality of life; women's health. Palavras-chave: incontinência urinária; qualidade de vida; saúde da mulher.
Resumo
INTRODUCTION: Urinary incontinence affects more than 50 million people worldwide, it has a great impact on quality of life by affecting social, domestic, occupational and sex life, regardless of age. Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of physical therapy treatment in women attending the Urogynecology service of Hospital and Maternity Leonor Mendes de Barros. METHOD: We retrospectively assessed 65 records of patients with diagnosis of urinary incontinence treated between November 2005 and November 2006. In order to have their data analyzed, patients were divided into two groups; group MF, which underwent medical treatment and physiotherapy, and group M, which had only medical treatment. In order to compare both groups' quantitative data, the analysis was performed in Statistica® software using Mann Whitney's non-parametric test. The analysis of association between the quantitative variables was performed through the Chi-Square test at 5% (p > 0.05) significance level. RESULTS: We observed that 60.6% of patients who underwent physical therapy treatment and medical treatment had the urinary incontinence symptoms decreased or completely cured, while 80% of women belonging to the medical treatmen only-group underwent surgery. CONCLUSION: Thus, we conclude that physical therapy is essential in treatment protocols of urinary incontinence outpatient clinics and to prevent surgery.
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