Epidemiology of urinary incontinence in women.

In this paper, the current knowledge and recent literature on the epidemiology of urinary incontinence are examined. The populations discussed include community-dwelling women and institutionalized women. This review includes discussions of the prevalence of urinary incontinence with age, the prevalence of the types and severity of urinary incontinence, the variations with racial and ethnic differences, and the risk factors proposed for urinary incontinence. The theories behind the currently recognized risk factors and the recent literature supporting or refuting them are analyzed. Because of an abundance of studies, only a small fraction is represented in this paper, but we attempted to emphasize high-quality and larger population studies.