title: Association of urinary incontinence and sexual function in women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the association between urinary incontinence and female sexual function in a non-clinical population.
  
  
  METHODS
  A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 2159 female employees of two hospitals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 883 sexually active participants, pure stress urinary incontinence was reported in 18.3%, pure urge urinary incontinence in 6.8%, mixed urinary incontinence in 15.1% and no urinary incontinence in 59.8%. The prevalence of female sexual difficulty, defined by the Female Sexual Function Index total score ≤ 26.55, was 52.0%, 56.1%, 54.3% and 42.2%, respectively (P < 0.05). After adjustment of age, menstrual status, length of marriage, having children and relationship with the partner, all types of urinary incontinence showed a significant association with female sexual difficulty with an odds ratio of 1.6-1.8. Taking into consideration the individual domains, pure urge urinary incontinence was a risk factor for decreased sexual lubrication and more sexual pain, and mixed urinary incontinence was a risk factor for less sexual satisfaction, whereas pure stress urinary incontinence was not related to a difficulty in individual domains.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stress urinary incontinence and urge urinary incontinence are associated with general impairment of female sexual function to a mild degree. Only urge urinary incontinence is related to sexual difficulty in specific domains including sexual lubrication and sexual pain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, Yuan's General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Cheng-Chen
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Beth Yu-Chen
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Bang-Ping
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Jiann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012735:Sexual Dysfunction, Physiological / Q000209:etiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: female sexual difficulty; female sexual function; individual domain; stress urinary incontinence; urge urinary incontinence