Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover the prevalence of Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI) in nulliparous female athletes and the associated risk factors. A thorough search was conducted in databases using keywords in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Only articles with the following characteristics were included: those containing the described population, published from 2000 to 2015, and using methodologies such as cohort studies, case-control studies, prevalence studies, systematic reviews, and randomized trials. The sample included 20 studies, mainly in English. It was found that the prevalence of SUI varied widely, ranging from 9% in some cases to the total amount of participants evaluated in others. Despite of this, the investigations that showed the highest prevalence of SUI were found in sports involving high impact activities and were originally from Nordic countries. Regarding personal risk factors, constipation, low back pain, inability to interrupt the urine flow, and asthma were also considered predictive factors. In addition, sports with a higher risk of SUI were those that involved high impact and catching objects. Other factors that showed important results were: years of practice and level and volume of training per week. It is concluded that, although there is still not enough scientific evidence to explain the relationship between SUI and nulliparous female athletes, this research shows that the type of sport plays an important role in the presence of SUI.

Keywords prevalence; risk factor; urinary incontinence; sport; woman; nulliparous