Population aging leads to an increase in the number of men 65 years or older with various nursing care problems, such as incontinence. When talking about incontinence, nursing research and practice mostly focus on women. Therefore, incontinence in the male population is still underreported. We defined urinary incontinence (UI) as any involuntary loss of urine without any involuntary loss of fecal material (1) . Fecal incontinence was defined any involuntary loss of fecal material without any involuntary loss of urine (1). And double incontinence, as an involuntary loss of urine and fecal material (2). The aim of this study was to report the prevalence, type of incontinence and used interventions with regard to UI, FI and DI in men 65 years or older.

This is a secondary data analysis of the “Nursing Care Quality” measurement in Austria (3). We used data from the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 from hospitals and geriatric institutions. We included data of men 65 years or older, to assess the prevalence, type of incontinence and used interventions. Descriptive statistics as well as X2 tests and Mann-Whitney U-Test was used for data analyses.

Of all men 65 years or older (N=3686), 75% were continent (n=2764), 11.7% (n=430) were UI; 2.8% (n=105) were FI and 10.5% (387) were DI. DI men 65 years or older had statistically significantly more medical diagnoses (3.7; SD 2.1) than UI men 65 years or older (3.2; SD 1.9) or FI men (3.1; SD 2). Besides, they were significantly more often bedfast (45.5%) or immobile (32.6%) compared to UI men 65 years or older (6.3%; 2.8%) or FI men 65 years or older (34.3%; 23.8%). Adjustment of clothing was performed statistically significantly more often in UI men 65 years or older (55.7%) compared to FI men or DI men 65 years or older (39.3%; 46.3%). Medication itself or the evaluation of medication was used statistically significantly more often in the group of DI men 65 years or older (12.9%; 11.6%) than in UI men or FI men 65 years or older (7.7%; 8.1% vs. 1.9%; 2.9%). We also identified statistically significant differences in the use of absorbent products such as pads between UI, FI and DI men 65 years or older (42.8%; 46.7%; 54.8%).

This study revealed that although incontinence in men is a neglected topic in the international literature, one fourth of the men 65 years or older are affected by either UI, or FI or DI.

Based on the results we conclude that within men 65 years or older specific focus should be placed on the prevention of FI in older men, as well as on the revision of medication as one crucial treatment strategy.

D'Ancona C, Haylen B, Oelke M, Abranches-Monteiro L, Arnold E, Goldman H, et al. The International Continence Society (ICS) report on the terminology for adult male lower urinary tract and pelvic floor symptoms and dysfunction. Neurourology and urodynamics. 2019;38(2):433-77.
Sultan AH, Monga A, Lee J, Emmanuel A, Norton C, Santoro G, et al. An International Urogynecological Association (IUGA)/International Continence Society (ICS) joint report on the terminology for female anorectal dysfunction. International urogynecology journal. 2017;28(1):5-31.
Eglseer D, Osmancevic S, Hoedl M, Lohrmann C, Bauer S. Improving the quality of nursing care in Austria: 10 years of success. Journal of nursing management. 2021;29(2):186-93.

Continence 2S2 (2022) 100226
DOI: 10.1016/j.cont.2022.100226