Prevalence of Sexual Dysfunction in Women with Urinary Incontinence

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Mafalda; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Centro Hospitalar Universitário de São João, Porto, Portugal.
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Moreira, Susana; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Centro Hospitalar Universitário de São João, Porto, Portugal.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25759/spmfr.459
• topic: Anxiety; Depression; Sexual Dysfunctions, Psychological; Urinary Incontinence; Ansiedade; Depressão; Disfunções Sexuais Psicológicas; Incontinência Urinária

Introduction: Our objective was to demonstrate the prevalence of sexual disfunction (SD) in a population of Portuguese women with urinary incontinence (UI), trying to verify and search which factors can be related with this condition.Methods: Cross-sectional study including women between 18 and 65 years old, referred to the consultation of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation - Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation of a tertiary hospital by stress or mixed UI, between January/2018 and June/2019. Women with SD were identified by the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and the presence of depression/anxiety symptoms was addressed using the Hospital Anxiety & Depression Scale (HADS) questionnaire. The severity of UI was estimated based on the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form (ICIQ-SF). A database and a statistical analysis were performed using the SPSS Software version 25 and the values of p<0.05 were considered significant.Results: Our sample was 59 women, with age ranged between 31 to 64 years-old (average: 45 years-old). The duration of UI ranged from 6 months to 20 years (median: 5 years). Most of them (59.6%) presented SD. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean age of the groups with and without SD. Depression criteria were present in 39% of the women and anxiety in 20.3%. The presence of these pathologies was associated with the presence of SD (p=0.001 for depression and p=0.011 for anxiety). The severity of UI was not different between groups with and without SD.Conclusion: UI affects several aspects of quality of life, including sexual function, as this study points out, given the high prevalence of SD in the sample, regardless of the woman’s age, duration of UI or its severity. This reinforces the importance of correctly identify and address SD. In this population there was also an important prevalence of depressive/anxious pathology, which was significantly related to the presence of SD, which may be a preponderant factor for the development or a consequence of these psychopathological disorders, so they should not be overlooked.