Association of Urinary Tract Infection in Married Women Presenting with Urinary Incontinence in a Hospital based Population

Abstract

Introduction: Urinary incontinence (UI) is increasingly recognized as a significant health problem, which remains a hygienic as well as social problem. Women have higher risk of developing incontinence in their lifetime compared with men. Urinary tract infection can increase the incidence of incontinence. Present study was undertaken to assess the association of UTI in married women who presented with UI. Aim: The present study was aimed to identify the patients (married women) with complaints of UI and determining its association with UTI; and to identify the causative organism for the UTI along with its antimicrobial susceptibility pattern. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional, nonrandomized study of 107 married women with UI, who attended outpatient department in our hospital. Mid-stream urine (MSU) samples were collected from these patients with positive history of incontinence. Screening of urine for significant bacteriuria and culture to identify the etiological agents were performed followed by evaluation of their antimicrobial susceptibility profiles using Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: Overall 25.2% of patients with incontinence had a positive urine culture. History of UTI was elicited in around 38.3% of patients, among which 15% had positive urine culture and 10.3% of the patients who did not have a history had positive culture. Escherichia coli was the commonest causative organism (66.6) causing UTI, followed by Enterococcus spp. (22.3%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (7.4%) and Proteus mirabilis (3.7%). The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern for Escherichia coli showed high sensitivity to Nitrofurantoin (94.4%) and high resistance to Ampicillin (94.4%). Conclusion: Our study revealed one in every four incontinent patients had UTI and almost half of them suffered from previous episodes of UTI. Thus appropriate correction of the existing UTI can help in the treatment of UI.

Keywords

• antibiogram
• escherichia coli
• significant bacteriuria
• urinary incontinence in women
• urine culture