Climacteric Women’s Life Quality with Urinary Incontinence in Aracaju City

Introduction: Climacteric is the biological cycle period in women characterized by loss of ovarian follicular activity, causing innumerous emotional, physical and endocrinal changes. In this period, which starts at the age of 40 and finishes at 60, some women undergo profound existential experience in their interpersonal relations, in their conjugal, professional, spiritual, social and cultural life.

Objective: Assess the impact of urinary incontinence in women's quality of life into climacteric period, registered at health units in the city of Aracaju, Sergipe/ Brazil.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted on 476 women from 41 health care units in the national family health strategy program. A specific questionnaire, King’s Health Questionnaire (KHQ), validated in Brazil by Tamamani et al. (2006), was used to collect data. The data collected was divided into categories. Frequency distribution and cross tabulation, with determination of confidence intervals for each frequency, were applied. The descriptive analysis was carried out through the measure of dispersion and measures of central tendency by the software Microsoft Excel 2007. Data were described by simple and proportions.

Results: 476 climacteric women were interviewed, aged 40 to 59 years old. Among those, 32% reported complaint of urinary incontinence, at least once a week, for at least three months in the last year. The most affected domains of KHQ were: Impact of urinary incontinence, followed by general perception of health and measurements of gravity with average above 50%. The sample was calculated from the formula proposed by Barbeta (2001).

Conclusions: Although other domains had average below 50, the influence of urinary incontinence in the life quality of climacteric women in Aracaju/SE was not discarded, as the presented data pointed that most women interviewed showed at least minor discomfort in the everyday activities, physical and social limitations, compromising personal relations like relationship with their partners and sexual life, emotions, sleep, disposition and measurements of gravity.