Dayana Maia Saboia

The effectiveness of post-partum interventions to prevent urinary incontinence: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE to assess the effectiveness of post-partum interventions to prevent urinary incontinence: a systematic review. METHOD systematic review of randomized controlled studies conducted in the MEDLINE, Cochrane, Scopus and the Virtual Library on Health (Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, BVS) databases. RESULTS six articles were included in this review. All studies used the Pelvic Floor Muscle Training as the main procedure to prevent urinary incontinence. The results pointed to a positive and effective intervention in the post-partum period. CONCLUSION there is evidence that programs of exercise of the pelvic floor musculature performed both in the immediate and late post-partum result in a significant increase in muscle strength and contribute to prevent urinary incontinence.

Women’s knowledge, attitude and practice related to urinary incontinence: systematic review

IntroductionKnowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) investigations lead to an understanding of what a particular population group knows, thinks and does in relation to a certain subject.MethodsThis systematic review was conducted to identify women’s KAP related to urinary incontinence (UI) described in the literature and the measurement/evaluation instruments used. A literature search, up to July 2017, was conducted in PUBMED, SCOPUS and BVS (Virtual Health Library) for articles dealing with women’s KAP related to UI that described the validation procedure of any data collection instrument. Articles that investigated exclusively male subjects, provider performance or academic teaching strategies were excluded. Relevant studies were analyzed and briefly summarized.ResultsInitially, 799 articles were retrieved. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 19 remained for reading and summarizing. There has been interest in identifying and evaluating some of the KAP elements related to UI since 1994, with a wide variety of validated instruments used. Knowledge was evaluated in 15 articles and all concluded that there was misinformation about UI in the populations studied. Seven articles studied the intention to seek healthcare for UI, among which only one evidenced an adequate attitude in more than 70% of the participants. All the articles that investigated practice revealed low rates of seeking care.ConclusionsThe KAP elements are influenced by specific questions in each of the studied populations, leading to unique results, which indicates the importance of investigations using standardized data collection instruments that have psychometric validity tested in the target populations.