THOUGHTS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD URINARY INCONTINENCE IN TURKEY

Objective: our aim is to evaluate the thoughts and attitudes toward urinary incontinence in turkey. material and methods: randomly chosen 150 people who filled out the questionnaire in istanbul fatih area were included in the study. the participants filled out the ‘urinary incontinence attitude scale’. urinary incontinence attitude scale was translated into turkish by 3 translators and validated (cronbach’s alpha=0.72). results: 122 participants filled out the questionnaire completely. mean age was 35.5 ± 10.8. seventy-nine (64.8%) of the participants were females, 43 (35.2%) males; 57 (46.7%) married and 65 (53.5%) single. education level of the 11 (9.0%) participants was elementary school, 4 (3.3%) middle school, 21 (17.2%) high school and 86 (70.5%) university. the participants thought that the initial onset of involuntary urine loss could be ignored (49.2%), it would be hard to talk about urinary incontinence due to embarrassment (41.8%), it could be prevented (88.5%), any urinary problem should be assessed and reported when health problems are assessed (57%), had an adverse effect on quality of life (86.8%) and it is manageable (95.1%). when the responses of female and male participants were evaluated separately, there were significant differences in the responses. in question 2, significantly more female participants thought that talking about urinary incontinence was not embarrassing. in question 10, significantly more male participants thought that urinary incontinence was annoying. in question 11, significantly more female participants thought that any urinary problem should be assessed and reported when health problems were assessed. conclusion: in our study, the majority of the participants thought that urinary incontinence is a problem and could be treated and prevented; but it would be embarrassing to talk about urinary incontinence and urinary symptoms should be evaluated when other health issues were assessed.