Urinary incontinence and life quality of women in nursing homes in the Mediterranean Region

Urinary incontinence negatively affects quality of life and has both medical and social aspects. It is a multidimensional problem which affects women in different ways. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of urinary incontinence on quality of life for the women who are living in nursing home on Mediterranean area. This study included 95 female in-patients with urinary incontinence who were living in Antalya Metropolitan Municipality Nursing Home, Private Asmalı Konak Nursing Home, Adana Nursing Home Elderly Care and Rehabilitation Center, Adana Seyhan Municipality Nursing Home, Osmaniye Özden Nursing Home, Hatay Nursing Home Elderly Care and Rehabilitation Center, Kahraman Maraş Nursing Home, Mersin Erdemli Nursing Home and Burdur Municipality Berberoğlu Foundation Nursing Home located in the Mediterranean Region. The data of the study were collected by using questionnaire involving the socio-demographic characteristics of elder people with urinary incontinence, "Incontinence quality of life scale questionnaire" for evaluating quality of life of patients, " Daily Living Activities Index" for assessing their dependency status in performing activities of daily living, and "International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire Short Form (ICIQSF)" for identifying urinary incontinence type. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and frequencies as well as independent samples t test (student t test), Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal Wallis Variance Analysis were used to assess the data. SPSS 20 package was used for analysis and alpha value was accepted as 0.05 for statistically significance level. Totally 95 women aged between 65 and 92 was included in the study and age average of these women was determined as 77.26 ± 7.70. 66.3% of women who live in nursing home did not consider urinary incontinence as a health issue and 65. 3% did not admit to a health institution because of this complaint. Quality of life of the women who were thinking that urinary incontinence is not a health issue life quality was higher in a statistically significant way (p=0.000). The women who has one of pulmonary diseases have lower quality of life compared to those having no pulmonary disease in a statistically significant way (p = 0.017). The women, who has diabetes mellitus, have lower quality of life compared to those having no diabetes mellitus, in a statistically significant way (p=0.011). With the rate of 31.7%, mixed type urinary incontinence was determined as the most common urinary incontinence type in women who live in nursing home. Quality of life of the women who has nocturnal incontinence was affected negatively at most according to mean scores of subscales "limitation of behaviors", "social isolation", and "psychosocial impact" of I-QOL scale. Based on total mean scores of I-QOL scale, the quality of life of the women who has nocturnal incontinence was the most affected negatively. This was followed by stress type, mixed type, urge type and total incontinence, respectively. Key Words: Urinary Incontinence, Nursing Home, Quality Of Life, Elderly, Mediterranean Region