Training of Pelvic Floor Muscle Training Improves the Severity and Quality of Urine Incontinence and Increases Social Participation of Older Women in Southern Iran

Background: Aging and gender are risk factors for urine incontinence, which can lead to psychological, physical, and social complications. Objective: This community-based study investigates the effectiveness of pelvic floor muscle training on the severity and quality of urine incontinence and social participation of older women. Methods: This quasi-experimental community-based study was performed with the participation of 60 older women referring to the Public Health Center in Kerman City, southern Iran. The experiment group was trained with pelvic floor muscle training in 7 training sessions with distance health education in the second half of 2021. Before and after the intervention, data were collected based on: demographic, severity and quality of urine incontinence, and social participation inventories. Data were analyzed using a t-test and ANOVA (P ≤ 0.05). Results: The mean scores of severity and quality of urine incontinence and social participation in the experiment and control groups before receiving the intervention were not statistically significant (P ≥ 0.05). But after that, a statistically significant difference was observed between the groups (P <0.05), which showed an improvement in the severity and quality of urine incontinence scores as well as SP in the experiment group. Conclusions: Tele-training of the Kegel exercise, even during the pandemic, can play an important role in improving incontinence and social participation in older women. Therefore, this training can be used to prevent and improve urine incontinence in public health centers in the community.