Health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence among adult women in Gansu Province / 预防医学

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence among adult women in Gansu Province, so as to provide insights into the management of female urinary incontinence.@*Methods @#Women at ages of 20 years and older who lived in 8 communities and 8 villages of Gansu Province for at least one year were recruited using the multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling method. A face-to-face questionnaire survey was conducted from October 2019 to February 2020, and the demographic features, urinary incontinence status and health-seeking intention were collected and descriptively analyzed.@*Results@#A total of 3 580 questionnaires were allocated and 3 485 were recovered, with a recovery rate of 97.35%. The respondents had a mean age of ( 51.18±17.13 ) years, with 1 759 respondents ( 50.47% ) that lived in urban areas, and 1 726 ( 49.53% ) that lived in rural areas. There were 1 150 respondents with self-reported urinary incontinence ( 33.00% prevalence ), including 340 cases with stress urinary incontinence ( 29.57% ), 78 cases with urge urinary incontinence ( 6.78% ) and 732 cases with mixed urinary incontinence ( 63.65% ). The overall proportion of health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence was 41.57%, and the proportions of health-seeking intention were 51.76%, 39.74% and 37.02% for stress, urge and mixed urinary incontinence, respectively. The proportion of health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence appeared a tendency towards a decline with the increase in household monthly income per capita and frequency of urinary leakage, and appeared a tendency towards a rise with the increase in educational levels ( P<0.05 ). In addition, a higher proportion of health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence was seen in women living in urban areas than in rural areas (5 3.63% vs. 31.98%, P<0.05 ), and a higher proportion was found in women with mental labors than in those with physical labors ( 60.81% vs. 40.24%, P<0.05 ), while a higher proportion was found in married women than in divorced or widowed women ( 44.33% vs. 23.53%, P<0.05 ).@*Conclusions@#There is a low proportion of health-seeking intention for urinary incontinence among adult women in Gansu Province. Age, occupation, place of residence, educational level, income, marital status, and frequency of urine leakage may affect the intention to seek medical care for urinary incontinence among adult women.