1) To understand the prevalence of urinary incontinence on a population of professional women in healthcare 2) Verify the dysfunction consequences on their life quality 3) To understand if it is relevant to the professional women in healthcare the knowledge of the Pelvic Floor.

A transversal study was conducted through the usage of an online questionnaire, using an access link, to professional women in healthcare working at an secondary hospital, containing 27 questions: socio-demographic characteristics, obstetric history, function/dysfunction of Pelvic Floor and satisfaction level with their pelvic health.

157 women answered (21.9% doctors, 56.1% nurses, 6.5% Health Technicians and 15.5% Diagnostic and Therapy Technicians) the age range was on the majority between 26-33 years old. 53.8% of the subjects are nulliparous, 24.4% gave birth once, 19.2% gave birth twice and 2.6% gave birth three times. Of the women who gave birth at least once there were 32 cesarean births, 50 vaginal births and 20 of those with instruments help. Of those women 25% consider their pelvic floor recovery unsatisfactory. The average Body Mass Index (BMI) of the subjects is on average 24.72Kg/m2 (37% of women present a BMI greater or equal to 25 Kg/m2) and 24.8% refer to constipation. As of the reported symptoms 49.4% of the sample refer to having involuntary loss of urine (with higher prevalence on stress situations like coughing, sneezing or running) and 24.4% of the inquiries mentioned losses associated with urinary urgency. Of the 79 women referring to loss of urine 89.1% considers it impacts their quality of life and 17.4% feels the need for usage of protection devices on a daily basis. All of them consider the knowledge about their Pelvic Floor muscles relevant.

The results suggest that professional women in healthcare have a similar prevalence rate of urinary incontinence similar to the rest of the population. Although we know age being a risk factor to the occurrence of urinary incontinence, the prevalence of this dysfunction to women in working age is greater than 25% and that was verified by our sample. In such a way it was also verified on the sample that the most common reported type of urinary incontinence being the stress one, which confirms the data found in literature for the general population. The urinary incontinence has a huge impact on this women's working life, being described as the lack of focus during work, higher stress levels on specific activities and shame feelings, causing a significant decrease in their quality of life (1). 
Also in the study's sample of the inquired women mentioned that the involuntary loss of urine impacts their quality of life.
The Pelvic Floor's importance to health is greatly undervalued and even though we assume health professionals are aware of the risk factors to the development of urinary incontinence, there was an existence of high BMI, as well as a constipation presence higher than 20%. Although we have not done a correlation of the results in this sample, it is known that both factors are tightly related to the appearance of urinary incontinence (2).
The literature shows that the lack of knowledge about the Pelvic Floor is associated with a higher occurrence of dysfunctions, including urinary incontinence (3). We can conclude the urgency to increase the level of knowledge around this topic by the healthcare professionals, once they have an essential role in the promotion of health literacy, being the first contact professionals in the presence of complaints/symptoms to all the population.

Although most of the inquired women show knowledge about the Pelvic Floor and its functions, it is shown the prevalence of a Pelvic Floor dysfunction, namely stress urinary incontinence, being high among this healthcare professionals. And it was evident that the presence of pelvic floor dysfunction has an impact on the quality of life of these women.
It also has been verified the presence of risk factors to this dysfunction development, namely constipation and a high BMI. With these results, it can be identified the need for a higher sensibilization and guidance about the topic in order to reduce the pelvic floor’s dysfunctions impact on women's lives, being crucial to develop primary prevention strategies.

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Berzuk K, Shay B. Effect of increasing awareness of pelvic floor muscle function on pelvic floor dysfunction: a randomized controlled trial. Int Urogynecol J. June 2015;26(6):837–44.