Prevalence and Incidence of Urinary Incontinence in Community‐Dwelling Populations

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111128/1/j.1532-5415.1990.tb03504.x.pd

Self-Reported Social and Emotional Impact of Urinary Incontinence

Incontinence-specific and generic measures of well-being were regressed on potential predictors to identify incontinent respondents at risk for psychosocial distress and to understand the relationship between urinary incontinence (UI) and other determinants of social and emotional status. DESIGN: Survey data were collected May 1994 through April 1996. SETTING: Telephone interviews as a supplement to a nationally representative monthly consumer survey. PARTICIPANTS: Analyses were based on 1,116 continent and 206 incontinent respondents age 40 and older. MEASUREMENTS: Incontinent respondents self-reported the extent to which urine loss restricted social activities or affected their feelings about themselves. All respondents were asked whether they felt depressed, lonely, or sad. Covariates included sex, age, race, education, social desirability, health status, frequency of urine loss, quantity of loss, and urgency. RESULTS: The majority of incontinent respondents reported that urine loss did not restrict activities or diminish self-esteem. Incontinent respondents who were younger, male, less educated, lower in social desirability, in poorer health, or losing greater quantities of urine were more likely to report psychosocial distress, although these correlates were not consistently significant. Compared with continent respondents, significantly higher percentages of incontinent respondents reported feeling depressed, lonely, or sad. In the multivariate models, incontinence retained an independent association with loneliness, but not with sadness or depression. CONCLUSION: Even though the direct psychosocial impact of urine loss may be minor in many cases, UI is associated with a constellation of physical and behavioral factors that can impose a social and emotional burden. This suggests that UI cannot be adequately evaluated or treated without consideration of the patient's overall quality of life.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66250/1/j.1532-5415.2001.49179.x.pd

Informal Caregiving Time and Costs for Urinary Incontinence in Older Individuals in the United States

To obtain nationally representative estimates of the additional time, and related cost, of informal caregiving associated with urinary incontinence in older individuals. DESIGN: Multivariate regression models using data from the 1993 Asset and Health Dynamics Study, a nationally representative survey of people aged 70 and older (N = 7,443). SETTING: Community-dwelling older people. PARTICIPANTS: National population-based sample of community-dwelling older people. MEASUREMENTS: Weekly hours of informal caregiving, and imputed cost of caregiver time, for community-dwelling older people who reported (1) no unintended urine loss, (2) incontinence that did not require the use of absorbent pads, and (3) incontinence that required the use of absorbent pads. RESULTS: Thirteen percent of men and 24% of women reported incontinence. After adjusting for sociodemographics, living situation, and comorbidities, continent men received 7.4 hours per week of care, incontinent men who did not use pads received 11.3 hours, and incontinent men who used pads received 16.6 hours ( P < .001). Women in these groups received 5.9, 7.6, and 10.7 hours ( P < .001), respectively. The additional yearly cost of informal care associated with incontinence was $1,700 and$4,000 for incontinent men who did not and did use pads, respectively, whereas, for women in these groups, the additional yearly cost was $700 and$2,000. Overall, this represents a national annual cost of more than $6 billion for incontinence-related informal care. CONCLUSIONS: The quantity of informal caregiving for older people with incontinence and its associated economic cost are substantial. Future analyses of the costs of incontinence, and the cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent or treat incontinence, should consider the significant informal caregiving costs associated with this condition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66038/1/j.1532-5415.2002.50170.x.pd

Methods Used to Manage Urinary Incontinence by Older Adults in the Community

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111237/1/j.1532-5415.1989.tb05502.x.pd

Comment on the letter to the editors from Thomas Läubli

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43478/1/038_2004_Article_3145.pd

Patterns of body weight in middle-aged and older Americans, by gender and race, 1993–2000

Objectives: Despite evidence of poor health outcomes associated with excessive weight gain or loss, longitudinal patterns of body weight over the adult life course have not been fully described. This article seeks to address this by examining body weight patterns for middle-aged and older adults.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43477/1/038_2003_Article_2053.pd

The impact of own and spouse's urinary incontinence on depressive symptoms

This study investigated the impact of own and spouse's urinary incontinence on depressive symptoms. Attention was paid to the possibility that gender and caregiving might be important factors in understanding significant effects. We used negative binomial regression to analyze survey data for 9974 middle-aged and older respondents to the Health and Retirement Study in the USA. Results supported the hypothesis that the respondents' own urinary incontinence was associated with depressive symptoms (unadj. IRR=1.73, 95% CIs=1.53, 1.95 for men; unadj. IRR=1.50, 95% CIs=1.38, 1.63 for women). Controlling sociodemographic and health variables reduced this relationship, but it remained statistically significant for both men and women. Having an incontinent wife put men at greater risk for depressive symptoms (unadj. IRR=1.13, 95% CIs=1.02, 1.25), although this relation became nonsignificant with the addition of control variables. No relation between women's depressive symptoms and husbands' (in)continence status was found. Caregiving was not a significant variable in the adjusted analyses, but spouses' depressive symptoms emerged as a significant predictor of the respondents' own depressive symptoms. Health care providers must be sensitive to the emotional impact of urinary incontinence. Our findings also suggest the importance of considering the patient's mental health within a wider context, particularly including the physical and mental health of the patient's spouse.Urinary incontinence Depressive symptoms Survey USA

Gender Effects among Telephone Interviewers in a Survey of Economic Attitudes

Male and female telephone interviewers are compared on both administrative efficiency and data quality, using data from 24 replications of an attitudinal survey on personal and national economic prospects. The 40 male interviewers used over the two-year period are found to exhibit higher turnover rates and, because of that, lower response rates and higher training costs than the 80 female interviewers. However, there are no real differences on the total per minute interview costs by gender, in missing data rates, or on response distributions for factual questions. There does appear to be a systematic tendency for male interviewers to obtain more optimistic reports from respondents regarding their economic outlook. Multivariate models are constructed that attempt to explain these results and speculations are offered about causes of the impact of interviewer gender on response formation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68897/2/10.1177_0049124185014001002.pd