Centre for Policy on Ageing



Why older community-dwelling adults do not discuss urinary incontinence with their primary care physicians
Author(s)	Elizabeth Dugan, Christine P Roberts, Stuart J Cohen
Journal title	Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, vol 49, no 4, April 2001
Pages	pp 462-465
Keywords	Incontinence ; Living in the community ; Patients ; Communication ; General practitioners ; United States of America.
Annotation	This analysis is based on 149 older Americans (age 60+) with urinary incontinence (UI) who were not screened for incontinence by the primary care physician (PCP). Of these, 46 initiated a discussion with their doctor about UI, while 103 did not. Those who did not discuss incontinence were older, had less frequent leaking accidents, and fewer night-time voids, and were less bothered by UI than those who did. The two main reasons why patients did not seek help were the perception that UI was not a big problem (45%), and was a normal part of ageing (19%). Embarrassment or lack of awareness of treatment options were not significant barriers to discussing UI. Those with a fairly high frequency of UI (average of 1.7 episodes per day) did not view UI as abnormal or a serious medical condition. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020115215 A
Classmark	CTM: K4: LF: U: QT6: 7T
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.