Prevalence study of stress urinary incontinence in women who perform high-impact exercises

Abstract

Introduction: Stress urinary incontinence is a frequent complaint in medical offices and studies have shown that women who practice high impact sports develop its symptoms.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of stress urinary incontinence in women who attend gyms and perform high impact exercises and correlate it with women who do not attend gyms.

Method: Prospective comparative study in which 488 nulliparous women of normal weight were divided into a Study Group, composed of women who attended gyms, and a Comparative Group, composed of women who did not attend gyms. Three questionnaires were used for the evaluation of stress urinary incontinence and the results of the ICIQ-SF questionnaire were used to compare the groups.

Results: There was a significant difference between groups on the ICIQ-SF. The average in the Study Group was 1.68 (+ 3.46) and in the Comparative Group the average was 1.02 (+ 2.69) (p = 0.006).

Conclusion: Women who attend gym and perform high impact exercises have a higher prevalence of urinary incontinence symptoms, independent of the exercise modality, than women who do not perform any high impact exercise.