Prevalence of urinary symptoms and associated obstetric factors in adult women [Prevalência de sintomas urinários e fatores obstétricos associados em mulheres adultas]

Abstract

Background: Urinary incontinence is a disease with high prevalence among the female population and it has important physical, mental and social repercussions. Objective: To investigate the prevalence of urinary incontinence symptoms and the relationship of these symptoms with obstetric factors. Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional study in which 194 adult women employed at the Universidade do Vale do Paraíba were investigated. They answered questions from the King's Health Questionnaire. Urinary symptoms were linked to the obstetric history and analyzed by unpaired t test and by the Fisher exact test. Results: The prevalence of urinary symptoms was 54.3%. Stress urinary incontinence was the most frequent symptom (55.7%), followed by nocturia (27.8%), urgency (24.1%), pollakiuria (16.7%) and nocturnal enuresis (10.2%). The women who had been pregnant at least once were 1.75 times more likely to develop these symptoms than nulliparae, and the difference was significant when compared with women who had two or more pregnancies (p=0.009). Two or more deliveries increase the risk 1.57 times, regardless of the method of delivery (p=0.019). Conclusions: The prevalence of urinary symptoms was high. They were associated with obstetric factors and became proportionally greater with increasing numbers of pregnancies and deliveries. © 2009 Revista Brasileira de Fisioterapia.