The purposes of this study were to identify the prevalence of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) of community residing elderly women, and to identify the relationship between level of stress incontinence and self-esteem. Subjects were aged 60 and over urban (N = 76) and rural (N = 112) community residents.
Data were collected from December, 1995 to March, 1996. Subjects were interviewed with structured questionnaire. Questionnaire was composed of items of general characteristics, obstetrical characteristics, risk factors, tools measuring severity urinary incontinence and level of self-esteem.
When the subjects answer "yes" to the question, "Does urine leak when you cough, laugh, or move?", Subjects were classified as incontinent.
The results of study were as followings.
1) The prevalence of SUI was 62.2%. Most of subjects were mildly incontinent prevalence of moderate and severe SUI was 5%.
2) The older, the more incidence of of SUI were reported. The age of SUI group was higher than non SUI group (t = 3.9, P =.001).
3) SUI group has lower self esteem score than non SUI group (t = -4.67, P = .01). 4) Parity and UTI frequency were positively correlated to SUI.
(UTI, X2 = 6.2, P =.01,; parity, X2 = 43.8, P =.01)
5) Effects of SUI to daily life were limitation in social life, restriction of fluid intake, difficulty sharing a room, and frequent underwear change. Subjects with severe incontinence were suffered from all those factors.
In conclusion, this study were preliminary study to provide nursing practices guidelines for elderly SUI subjects. Nurses working with elderly should develop and provide adequate care for the incontinent elderly subjects.
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