Urinary incontinence

Urinary incontinence

Of every 10 women, 4 have suffered from incontinence at some time in their adult life
Incontinence costs the UK National Health Service about £242 million/year
In the USA, 20 million people have incontinence of urine. The annual cost is about $12.4 billion for women and $3.8 billion for men
In the USA, at least $4.5 billion is spent on incontinence pads alone

Incontinence is leakage of urine from the bladder. It may be just a few drops or a dribble, or may be a stream.

How common is urinary incontinence?
People often keep the problem to themselves, so incontinence is much more common than most people realize. A few years ago the broadcaster Claire Rayner spoke on TV about incontinence; afterwards, the programme received more than 12,000 letters asking for more information. In fact, there are probably about 3 million people in Britain with this problem. In 1995, the Royal College of Physicians estimated that the following numbers of women were affected:

5–7% of women aged 15–44 years
8–15% of women aged 45–64 years
about 15% of women aged 65 years or over.

The true numbers are probably much higher. For example, in 1999, a survey in Sweden found that 1 in 8 women under the age of 30 has urinary incontinence. And when a family doctor in the UK sent a questionnaire to 1000 women in his practice aged 44–65 years, he found that 22% had moderate urinary incontinence and 9% had a severe problem. A huge study in the USA (the Nurses’ Health study) found that 34% of women aged 50–70 years leaked urine at least once a month (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2002;100:719–23).

Incontinence is not a personal failure, nor is it something that ‘women should expect’; it can often be cured. Sadly, most women simply put up with it and do not get the help they need. A survey in the USA found that 6 out of 10 women with urinary incontinence had never talked to their doctor about it (Journal of Women’s Health 2003;12:687–98). Another survey showed that over 1.1 million women are using sanitary towels or panty liners just to cope with leakage of urine. A quarter of women with incontinence wait at least 5 years before going to their doctor.