The relationship between gender and the psychological impact of urinary incontinence on older people in Hong Kong: an exploratory analysis

Abstract

Adult incontinence violates social norms and values and undermines the personal expectation of being independent, dry and clean. Urinary incontinence is widely known to have a psychological impact on elderly people. This paper reports the findings of a study of the impact of incontinence on a convenience sample of older people in Hong Kong. Several of the results concur with those of studies in western countries. It was found that the prevalence of urinary incontinence increased with adult age, and that the condition affected women more than men. Over half of both men and women respondents had suffered for less than three years. It appeared that the period of suffering was not strongly associated with the level of incontinence. There were no significant differences between the duration and the level of incontinence, or between health status and years of suffering. About 80 per cent of the incontinent respondents had negative psychological impacts. There were significant differences between the sexes in the impact of urinary incontinence as indicated by the following items: elderly men found incontinence more stressful than their women counterparts; and elderly men more often strove to hide their incontinence from their friends. In summary, older men reported more negative psychological effects than older women. This study is not able to conclude that the psychological suffering of those who reported more negative effects is greater than that of those who reported fewer.