026 Review of Urinary Incontinence and Associated Female Sexual Dysfunction

Urinary incontinence (UI) and sexual dysfunction are two common conditions that often go undiagnosed and untreated in women, and are associated with decreased quality of life. While considerable research has examined the interaction between these two conditions, it is difficult for clinicians to garner practical information from individual studies due to methodological heterogeneity in definitions and populations. In this review, we evaluate the relationship between urinary incontinence and female sexual function (FSD), considering incontinence type and the psychosocial and physiologic aspects of sexual function. While several papers have addressed the role of UI treatments and sexual function, we provide the first contemporary review on the role of UI in FSD. This information is valuable to all clinicians who care for women with UI to ensure that quality of life and sexual function are addressed in any treatment plan. We performed a PubMed search in May 2016 using Boolean linking language and terms related to urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction, generating 603 published references, read by one author (ED). Of these, 138 papers studying incontinence and sexual health in women were then reviewed by both authors. Papers were included in the final review if they focused specifically on the association of urinary incontinence and sexual function and excluded if they focused on incontinence interventions and sexual health since the role of treatment was not the main aim of this review. This yielded 31 studies which were read in detail by both authors and included in the final analysis.