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Breathlessness is associated with urinary incontinence in men: A community-based study

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Open access
Authors
Hirayama, Fumi
Lee, Andy
Hiramatsu, T.
Tanikawa, Y.
Date
2010
Type
Journal Article

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Hirayama, F. and Lee, A. and Hiramatsu, T. and Tanikawa, Y. 2010. Breathlessness is associated with urinary incontinence in men: A community-based study. BMC Pulmonary Medicine. 10 (2).
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BMC Pulmonary Medicine
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School of Public Health
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This article is published under the Open Access publishing model and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/. Please refer to the licence to obtain terms for any further reuse or distribution of this work.

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Abstract

Background: Urinary incontinence (UI) is a distressing problem for older people. To investigate the relationship between UI and respiratory symptoms among middle-aged and older men, a community-based study was conducted in Japan. Methods: A convenience sample of 668 community-dwelling men aged 40 years or above was recruited from middle and southern Japan. The International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form, the Medical Research Council's dyspnoea scale and the Australian Lung Foundation's Feeling Short of Breath scale, were administered by face-to-face interviews to ascertain their UI status and respiratory symptoms. Results: The overall prevalence of UI was 7.6%, with urge-type leakage (59%) being most common among the 51 incontinent men. The presence of respiratory symptoms was significantly higher among incontinent men than those without the condition, especially for breathlessness (45% versus 30%, p = 0.025). The odds of UI for breathlessness was 2.11 (95% confidence interval 1.10-4.06) after accounting for age, body mass index, smoking and alcohol drinking status of each individual. Conclusions: The findings suggested a significant association between UI and breathlessness in middle-aged and older men.