Risk factor for stress incontinence in female patients over 65 years of age: Visceral Adiposity Index

Aims: To investigate whether there is a relationship between stress urinary incontinence and visceral adiposity index (VAI) in older women adults. Methods: Among 498 patients aged over 65 years who applied to the internal medicine-geriatrics outpatient clinic between January 2024 and June 2024, 95 female patients with stress incontinence (group-1) and 94 female control patients without incontinence (group-2) were included in the study. The remaining 309 patients were patients with other types of incontinence and were excluded from the study. Demographic characteristics, biochemical parameters and VAI values of patients (group-1) and (group-2) were compared statistically. Results: A total of 95 incontinent female cases with a mean age of 71.7±5.7 years and a total of 94 control female cases with a mean age of 72.0±5.2 years were included in the study. No statistically significant difference was found between the groups in terms of mean age distribution (p>0.05). The mean body-mass index (BMI) value of the patients in group 1 was statistically significantly higher than the patients in group 2 (p=0.037). The median visceral adiposity index value of 3.44 [3.07] in group 1 was 2.00 [1.4] higher than the median VAI value in group 2, and a statistically significant difference was observed between the groups (p<0.001). Conclusion: We observed that VAI levels showed comparable values in older patients with and without urinary incontinence (UI), suggest a potential association between increased levels of VAI and the presence of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) in the geriatric population.