A study on the rate of symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction among healthy women in pre and post-menopausal age and its impact on their day-to-day life.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Aim of the study was to analyze the rate of symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction, the presence of pelvic organ prolapse and to study how the symptoms affect the day to day life activities in a population of women living in the Ragama Medical Officer of Health (MOH) area.DESIGN, SETTING AND METHODS: A community-based cross sectional study was done in a study population of a larger ongoing longitudinal study named ‘Ragama Health Study’. Randomly selected 951 women from Ragama Medical Officer of Health (MOH) area were included. The symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction were elicited using a self-administered questionnaire and a vaginal examination was performed to assess the presence and grade of pelvic organ prolapse. RESULTS: Among the 951 women 881(92.6%) did not have symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction. Among the symptomatic women (n=70), urgency was the commonest symptom (26.8%) while 23.5% admitted urinary incontinence and 16.1% of women experienced fecal incontinence. Among the women with such symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse only 5.6% complained of these interfering with their sexual activities while 10.8% admitted them having an effect on their day-to-day activities. Pelvic organ prolapse was not elicited on clinical examination in 32.1% of symptomatic women while 60.7% had a prolapse up to the hymen and 7.2% had a prolapse beyond the level of hymen. CONCLUSIONS: Rate of symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction was around 7.5% among this sample of women in peri and postmenopausal age. Urinary incontinence and fecal incontinence were the most frequent symptoms. Only a few symptomatic women considered this to have an effect on their sexual function (5%) and day-to-day activities (10%). More than two thirds of women with symptoms had genital prolapse with over 7% having a significant prolapse protruding beyond the hymen.