Abstract
Background:
The prevalence of urinary incontinence and frailty increases with ageing. As an adaptive mechanism patients become socially isolated resulting in worsening of mental health anxiety and depression.
Aims/Objectives:
We undertook a retrospective observational study of frail patients with an eFI above 0.33 to look for a correlation between eFI, GAD and phQ-9 scores.
Methods:
The records of 600 patients with an eFI above 0.33 ( n=600 ) were analysed for declared symptoms of incontinence using the Michigan Incontinence Score Index (MISI) to see if there was a correlation with mental health problems, anxiety (GAD tool) and depression (phQ-9) scores.
Results:
Irrespective of age or comorbidity we found the score ranges of eFI (0.36-0.75), MISI (0-40), GAD (0-18) and phQ-9 (0-24). The correlation of the eFI severity, MISI and worsened GAD and phQ-9 score achieved statistically significant P values of 0.006882.
Conclusions and Recommendations:
Increasing frailty accompanied by urinary incontinence contributes to embarrassment and social isolation as a compensatory mechanism and is under reported due to an acceptance of this condition. It needs to be actively screened for as part of a frailty assessment, to ensure early referral to the continence services for support and patient education to mitigate these risks. We will be following up these patients to see if supportive management of their urinary incontinence improves their mental health and well-being.