Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence among a Nationally Representative Sample of Women, 2005–2016: Findings from the Urologic Diseases in America Project

Abstract

Purpose: Urinary incontinence is frequently underreported and underdiagnosed in the clinical setting. We analyzed 12 years of data from a large, nationally representative sample of women in the United States to assess the prevalence, severity, and daily impact of urinary incontinence and its subtypes at the population level. Materials and Methods: We analyzed data from 15,003 women aged 20 years who participated in the 2005e2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We estimated the prevalence of urinary incontinence in the prior year, overall and by subtype (stress, urgency or mixed). Among women with urinary incontinence, we additionally assessed symptom severity using the validated 4-level Incontinence Severity Index, as well as impact on daily activities. Results: The 2005e2016 prevalence of any urinary incontinence was 53%; 16% of women had mixed urinary incontinence, 26% had stress only and 10% had urgency only. While urgency urinary incontinence and mixed urinary incontinence were highest among women aged 60 years, stress urinary incontinence was highest among women aged 40e59 years. NonHispanic Black women had higher prevalence of urgency urinary incontinence and lower prevalence of stress urinary incontinence compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Of women with urinary incontinence, 30% reported moderate or severe symptoms, which were more common among older than younger women. In addition, 24% of women with urinary incontinence reported that the condition affected their daily activities. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a high prevalence of urinary incontinence among a nationally representative population of women in the United States, with many reporting that urinary incontinence affected their daily activities. Age and racial/ethnic trends varied by urinary incontinence subtype.

Updated Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence in Women: 2015–2018 National Population-Based Survey Data

“…The prevalence of UI in the United States using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 6 has been estimated at 38%, 50%, and 53% using data from 1999–2000, 2001–2004, and 2005–2016, respectively 6–8 . In the 2001–2004 and 2005–2018 NHANES analyses, 49.8% and 45.9% of UI was SUI, 34.3% and 18.1% was MUI, and 15.9% and 31.1% was UUI 8,9 …”

Survey of lower urinary tract symptoms in United States women using the new lower urinary tract dysfunction research Network‐Symptom Index 29 (LURN‐SI‐29) and a national research registry

“…Convenience sampling is simpler and less expensive, but often runs the risk of bias and an inability to extrapolate findings to the general population. The ResearchMatch online community of volunteers who participated in our study were younger, more educated, less parous and less menopausal than women in other studies sampled using population‐based representative sampling, such as the Epidemiology of LUTS (EpiLUTS) and National Health and Nutrition Examination (NHANES) studies, and women in the general US population 2,11 . In addition, although the response rate using ResearchMatch for a “women's pelvic health study” (9.3%) was similar to response rates using postal and telephone recruitment 3 and other internet based research registries, it was much lower than in studies with incentivized internet based sampling, such as EpiLUTS (59.6%) 12,13 .…”

“…ResearchMatch respondents reported a high prevalence and bother from a broad range of LUTS (Table 2 and Figure 1). LURN-SI-29 total score for all participants ranged from 0 to 77; median score (25th%, 75th%) was 17 (11,26). Notably, the Nocturia sub-score had the highest median score of 29 (14, 57) and the Incontinence subscore had the lowest median score of 4 (0, 13).…”

This Month in Pediatric Urology

“…Lee et al (page 1595) from Boston, Massachusetts compared cohorts of children 13 years and younger with history of febrile UTI presenting for first VCUG before (2005: 943 patients) and after (2015: 490 patients) this recommendation. 3 As would be expected, more children had 2 or more episodes of UTI prior to the initial VCUG in the more recent cohort. Only 6%e7% of patients underwent dimercaptosuccinic acid scan to assess for renal scarring, but the more recent cohort had nearly 3 times higher odds of renal scarring.…”