Community-Based Continence Promotion: Sustaining Healthy Aging in Place (SHAIP) Through Mind Over Matter (MOM)

The goal of this study is to obtain data about the effectiveness, reach, adoption, and implementation potential of an innovative, combined urinary/bowel continence workshop through a randomized controlled trial in six Wisconsin communities. This three-session workshop is based on proven principles of behavior change addressing urinary and bowel continence self-management and health education and has been developed specifically for administration to women age 50 and older in senior centers. We hypothesize that workshop participants will experience improvements in urinary and bowel incontinence symptoms, will have increased levels of care-seeking and self-efficacy for these conditions, and will maintain the self-management strategies taught in the workshop 3 months following completion of the workshop. We further hypothesize that this workshop will reach its intended target population (independent senior women with incontinence) and will improve their mental health by destigmatizing the condition of incontinence.