Prevalence of combined fecal and urinary incontinence: A community-based study

OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence of combined fecal and urinary incontine nce. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, community-based study. SETTING: Olmsted County, Minnesota. PARTICIPANTS: Men (n = 778) and women (n = 762), aged 50 years or older, se lected randomly from the population. MEASUREMENTS: Participants completed a previously validated self-administer ed questionnaire that assessed the occurrence of fecal and urinary incontin ence in the previous year. RESULTS: The age-adjusted prevalence of incontinence was 11.1% (95% Confide nce Interval (CI), 8.8-13.5) in men and 15.2% (95% CI, 12.5-17.9) in women for fecal incontinence; 25.6% (95% CI, 22.5-28.8) in men and 48.4% (95% CI, 44.7-52.2) in women for urinary incontinence; and 5.9% (95% CI, 4.1-7.6) i n men and 9.4% (95% CI, 7.1-11.6) in women for combined urinary and fecal i ncontinence. The prevalence of fecal incontinence increased with age in men but not in women, from 8.4% among men in their fifties to 18.2% among men in their eighties (P for trend = .001). For women, the prevalence increased from 13.1% among 50-year-old women to 20.7% among women 80 years or older (P for trend = .5). Among persons with fecal incontinence, the prevalence o f concurrent urinary incontinence was 51.1% among men and 59.6% among women (P = .001 and P = .003, respectively). Cross-sectionally, the age-adjusted , relative odds of fecal incontinence among persons with urinary incontinen ce was greater in men than in women (Odds Ratio (OR) = 3.0; 95% CI, 1.9-4.8 in men and OR = 1.8; 95% CI, 1.2-2.7 in women, P = .04). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that persons with one form of incontine nce are likely to have the other form as well. Despite the higher prevalenc e of urinary and fecal incontinence among women, the association between fe cal incontinence and urinary incontinence was stronger among men than women . This finding, and the significant association between fecal incontinence and age observed in men but not in women, suggest that the etiologies may b e more closely linked in men than in women.