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Changing prevalence and knowledge of urinary incontinence among Hong Kong Chinese women

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Abstract

A territory-wide telephone survey was conducted in Hong Kong to assess the prevalence, knowledge, and treatment-seeking behaviour of Chinese women with urinary incontinence, using validated Chinese version of Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6) and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ-7). Women, 540, aged between 17 to 77 years were interviewed. Of the respondents, 40.8% reported stress urinary incontinence, 20.4% had urge incontinence and 15.9% had mixed incontinence. Among these, 16.0% reported quality of life impairment; 9.3% felt frustrated with low morale, and 15.2% had nervous and anxiety problems. However, as many as 78.3% of the respondents did not know that stress urinary incontinence is a disease entity, and 60.6% thought that leakage of urine was a normal aging process. For those respondents having stress urinary incontinence, the first treatment of choice was physiotherapy. The second choice was medication, and surgical treatment was the last option. Respondents with stress urinary incontinence showed higher education level.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor Ka-Ying Wong, Director, Telephone Survey Research Laboratory, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, for his technical assistance in the telephone survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, 30 Gascoigne Road, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    To Wong, Betty Yuen-Ting Lau, Ho-Leung Mak & Cecilia Cheon

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Man-Wah Pang & Shing-Kai Yip

Authors
  1. To Wong
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  2. Betty Yuen-Ting Lau
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  3. Ho-Leung Mak
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  4. Man-Wah Pang
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  5. Cecilia Cheon
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  6. Shing-Kai Yip
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Correspondence to To Wong.

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Wong, T., Lau, B.YT., Mak, HL. et al. Changing prevalence and knowledge of urinary incontinence among Hong Kong Chinese women. Int Urogynecol J 17, 593–597 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-006-0072-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-006-0072-3

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