Survey: Incontinence Affects Daily Life for Middle-Aged Women

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (May 27, 2020)—Aeroflow Healthcare, a nationwide provider of durable medical equipment, announced the results of a proprietary survey designed to highlight the struggle and stigma middle-aged women experience with incontinence. The third-party administered survey polled 1010 adult women aged 40 to 64 living in the United States and was completed on March 16, 2020. The full survey results can be found here.

The survey’s key findings fall within three main categories:

Prevalence: 

• Incontinence is very common among women aged 40-64, with almost 3/4 (72%) of women surveyed having experienced issues with bladder control or leakage, and 74% first experiencing incontinence between those same ages.
• 65% say they experience bladder leakage at least once a month and for 1 in 4 women, it is a daily occurrence.

Stigma: 

• 52% of middle-aged women have tried to hide loss of bladder control after experiencing it in public, while another 42% are embarrassed to discuss it with family or friends, indicating a strong incontinence stigma.
• For over half of these women (53%), incontinence affects their daily lives and activities, including work, career, education, ability to exercise, ability to run errands, and even their ability to attend social gatherings.

Lack of Education and Treatment: 

• More than half of women surveyed (56%), did not visit a health care provider after experiencing loss of bladder control, and 37% said they did not seek treatment because they did not think it was a big deal, illustrating a lack of education and awareness around incontinence.

The results of this survey highlight how far society still has to go in promoting awareness and discussing incontinence, and shows that women are led to believe bladder control and leakage are merely a normal process of aging.

“This study confirms what we already suspected: that social stigma and a lack of education about incontinence stand in the way of treatment,” said Aleece Fosnight, PA-C and Medical Advisor for Aeroflow Urology. “Breaking down those barriers is such an important step in preventative treatment and normalizing incontinence. Without proper treatment, incontinence can snowball into larger health issues such as urinary tract infections, kidney failure, and depression, and can even impact life issues like personal finance.

“Incontinence shouldn’t be embarrassing, but it all starts with health care providers educating patients on the symptoms, how common this issue is and how to address it. We hope this study raises awareness around the prevalence of incontinence in all women and how important it is for us to start having meaningful conversations on the topic to ultimately drive earlier detection and treatment for patients.”