Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence Via Smartphone

Female urinary incontinence (UI) is very common and affects up to one fourth of grownup women. It may reduce quality of life for those affected and costs for society are high. The most common type of urinary incontinence is SUI, i.e leakage when coughing, sneezing or jumping.

The recommended first line treatment is pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT)which leads to improvement or cure in two-thirds of patients. In addition, life style changes, such as weight loss when obese, smoking cessation and reduction of fluid intake if high is recommended.

There is a need for new , flexible and easily accessible treatment programmes for female urinary incontinence. In our previous study, we compared two treatment programmes for SUI without face-to-face contact: one internet based and one sent by post, both based on three months of PFMT. In this randomized controlled trial of 250 women aged 18-70 years, we found highly significant improvements (p<0.001) with large effect sizes (>0,8)concerning primary outcomes (symptoms and quality of life scores) but no significant differences between groups. Compared with the postal group, more participants in the internet group perceived they were much or very much improved (40.9% vs 26.5%, p<0.01, reported reduced usage of incontinence aids (59.5% vs 41.4%, p=0.02) and were satisfied with the treatment programme (84.8% vs 62.9%, p<0.001).

The selling of smartphones is increasing rapidly. About 75% of all cellphones sold in Sweden today are smartphones. Two million adults in Sweden have a smartphone. Many smartphone owners have at least one health app on their phone. Exercise, diet, and weight apps are the most popular types.

From our previous experience of an Internet-based programme, we have developed a treatment program designed for smartphone. The effect of the treatment programme will be evaluated after three months by comparing the effect in the "smartphone group" with the effect in the "waiting group".