Urinary incontinence verification in elderly men

Abstract

This study considered the problem of verifying the amount and frequency of incontinent urine loss in an outpatient population. The sample consisted of elderly male community-dwelling veterans who experienced urinary incontinence. Two amount tests (60-minute and 3-day) were completed by 46 volunteer subjects and 7-day frequency records were kept by an additional 44 volunteers. Results indicated that 60-minute and 3-day absorbent pad tests for amount of urine loss classified 59% (n = 27) of the subjects the same way (normal or abnormal). Thus, the shorter test appears useful as a screening test and offers advantages of lower cost and more accurate reporting. If abnormal urine loss is not identified with the short test, the long test should be used to detect infrequent episodes. Three-day tests for incontinence frequency classified 86% (n = 28) of subjects the same as 4-day tests. Therefore, a 3-day test appears adequate to determine the number and pattern of incontinent episodes as well as associations with relevant events such as activity levels and fluid intake.