A systematic review of the literature on the prevalence of sexual impairment in women with urinary incontinence and the prevalence of urinary leakage during sexual activity

Objective: To provide a synthesis of the literature concerning the impact of urinary incontinence on sexual lives of women and the prevalence of urinary incontinence during sexual activity. Methods: Medline and PsycInfo were searched for all primary epidemiological articles reporting the prevalence of sexual incontinence or the impact of urinary incontinence on sexual function in women. Only papers written in English since 1980 and prior to December 2001 were included. Results: Two studies had assessed the prevalence of sexual incontinence in randomly selected community samples and reported population prevalences of 2%. Reporting in clinical samples were varied with prevalences ranging from 10 to 56%. Studies of impairment in sexual function were more varied and methodologically heterogeneous with reported prevalences of 0.6-64%. Conclusions: Further research is needed using standard definitions and measures of sexual incontinence and sexual impairment in order to establish reliable prevalence estimates. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.