Urinary incontinence in community-dwelling older Mexican American and European American women

The aim was to measure prevalence and correlates of urinary incontinence in community-dwelling Mexican American (MA) and European American (EA) women from a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a longitudinal cohort. Participants were MA and EA women, aged 65 years and older, in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), of whom 421 (97.4%) responded to the question “How often do you have difficulty holding your urine until you can get to a toilet.” Measurements included sociodemographic, functional, cognitive, psychosocial, and clinical status variables derived from bilingual interviews and performance-based tests. Urinary incontinence prevalence was 36.6% (n = 154). MA women reported less incontinence than did EAs (29% versus 45%, p = 0.001). In multivariable analyses in MA women, urinary incontinence correlated with the presence of fecal incontinence (OR 4.0, 95% CI 1.1-14.0) and more dependency in activities of daily living (1.4, 1.1-1.8) after controlling for significant sociodemographic factors. In EA women, only age >75 (4.2, 1.4-12.4) was associated with urinary incontinence. MA women were less likely to report incontinence compared to EAs, despite MAs having increased number of children, less education, higher BMI, and more diabetes. Further research is needed to evaluate risk factors for urinary incontinence among MA women.