title: Help-seeking behaviour and associated factors among women with urinary incontinence in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the proportion of women who consult their doctor about urinary incontinence (UI), and explore factors associated with help-seeking in France, Germany, Spain and the UK.
  
  
  METHODS
  A representative sample of 29,500 women received a 13 item postal questionnaire to identify those with UI. A randomly selected sub-sample of 2953 women with UI received a more detailed follow-up questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a response rate of 58% in the initial survey and 53% in the second. Thirty-one percent of all women had consulted a doctor about their UI symptoms with more women consulting in France and Germany than in the UK and Spain. A number of factors relating to general health care, UI and women's attitudes were found to be associated with help-seeking after adjusting for women's age, UI duration and frequency, and 'bothersomeness' of UI; factors traditionally associated with help-seeking. After adjusting for these factors, willingness to take long-term medication and having spoken to others about UI were found to be strong predictors of help-seeking in all four countries.
authors.affiliation: Section for General Practice, Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Kalfarveien 31, 5018 Bergen, Norway. marie.odonnell@isf.uib.no
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Donnell
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lose
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sykes
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Voss
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hunskaar
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D016496:Incontinence Pads / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*