Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Apr 11;25(1):173.
doi: 10.1186/s12905-025-03716-0.

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) symptom progression and treatment satisfaction from the patients' perspective

Emily J Sanchez  1 , Jessica Chen  1 , Isain Zapata  2   3 , Benjamin D Brooks  4
Affiliations

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) symptom progression and treatment satisfaction from the patients' perspective

Emily J Sanchez et al. BMC Womens Health. .

Abstract

Background: Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a condition where pelvic organs descend into the vaginal canal due to weakened pelvic floor muscles. Nearly 50% of women will develop some degree of POP, with incidence peaking at ages 50-54 and 65-69. This study aims to identify early symptoms of POP and assess their progression, improvement, or regression from the patient's subjective perspective. This study also aims to understand patient satisfaction as it relates to treatment modalities.

Methods: An exploratory cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst participants with a POP diagnosis that were over the age of eighteen and lived within the United States.

Results: Among 158 participants, the feeling of a bulge (mean severity 6.62 reduced to 3.48), back pain (5.49 to 3.51), and constipation (5.56 to 3.91) showed the greatest improvement after surgical and non-surgical treatments for POP. Other common pelvic floor symptoms, including stress urinary incontinence (4.33 to 2.88), fecal incontinence (3.02 to 2.08), and dyspareunia (4.30 to 3.59), showed minimal improvement, while pelvic pain (4.73 to 4.00) and urinary retention (3.55 to 3.44) remained largely unchanged. Non-surgical treatments had lower satisfaction scores as compared to physical therapy and pessary usage. Surgical treatments such as posterior vaginal repair (7.02), anterior bladder repair (6.69), and vaginal vault sacrocolpopexy (7.45) showed higher satisfaction ratings.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the critical need for understanding symptom progression and regression as told from the patient's perspective. While data analysis shows resolution of some symptoms, the persistence of others post-treatment suggests that current treatment protocols may not fully address all aspects of POP effectively or may be unrelated.

Keywords: Conservative management; POP; Pelvic floor muscle therapy; Pelvic organ prolapse; Surgical treatment; Symptom progression; Symptom severity; Treatment satisfaction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Rocky Vista University Institutional Review Board (RVU IRB 2023 − 132). Information about the study was presented to the respondents before they could enter the online questionnaire. This included the study objectives, the participants’ right to withdraw at any time, and contact information to members of the research group. All participants provided their written informed consent to participate in the study. All methods were conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations or declaration of Helsinki. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Duration for non-surgical POP treatments and time since surgical treatments. Non-surgical treatments are presented in orange while surgical treatments are presented in blue. Date ranges for pessary modality refer to time since insertion. Date ranges for physical therapy represent time since completion of course. Date ranges for surgical modalities represent time since surgical procedure performed
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aboseif C, Liu P. Pelvic Organ Prolapse. StatPearls [Internet]. 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK563229/. Accessed 14 Jan 2025.
    1. American Urogynecologic Society. POP-Q Pelvic Organ Prolapse Interactive Assessment Tool. 2022. https://pop-q.netlify.app/. Accessed 10 Feb 2025.
    1. Wang B, Chen Y, Zhu X, Wang T, Li M, Huang Y et al. Global burden and trends of pelvic organ prolapse associated with aging women: an observational trend study from 1990 to 2019. Front Public Health. 2022;10. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Carroll L, O’ Sullivan C, Doody C, Perrotta C, Fullen B. Pelvic organ prolapse: the lived experience. PLoS ONE. 2022;17:e0276788. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brown HW, Hegde A, Huebner M, Neels H, Barnes HC, Marquini GV, et al. International urogynecology consultation chap. 1 committee 2: epidemiology of pelvic organ prolapse: prevalence, incidence, natural history, and service needs. Int Urogynecol J. 2022;33:173–87. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources