How Women Conceptualize Urinary Incontinence: A Cultural Model

Abstract Aims: Urinary incontinence (UI) is common among women in the United States and worldwide. Although the biomedical model for female UI has been thoroughly examined, the cultural model women living with UI ascribe to has been less well described. The purpose of this study was to elicit salient features of a cultural model for long-term (>5 years) female UI and, in so doing, increase understanding of the conceptualization of female UI from an emic (patient-derived) perspective. Cultural models theory provided the overall framework for the study. Methods: Freelist (n = 25) and pilesort (n = 13) exercises were completed by community-dwelling women with long-term UI. In the freelist exercise, participants listed 81 unique terms in response to the request: Please list all the terms you think of when you hear the phrase urinary incontinence. The most salient terms included: wet, embarrassed, diapers/pads, leakage, old age, urinate, annoyance, inconvenience. We then used the most culturally salient items ...