Compliance and Adherence to Pelvic Floor Exercise Therapy in People with Pelvic Floor Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND

The impact of muscle-training treatment on quality of life and functional outcomes in people with pelvic floor dysfunction may be related to adherence rates.

METHODS

Nine electronic databases were searched for studies published up to 15 October 2024. A qualitative synthesis was used to describe the relationship between adherence or compliance with treatment, quality of life, and symptomatic severity. A meta-analysis of data from selected studies was performed that assessed quality of life and symptomatic severity in the short term.

RESULTS

Seven studies with 2190 participants were included. Of these studies, 42% showed rates greater than 80% in terms of adherence. A beneficial effect was found in terms of urinary incontinence severity without statistical differences between the groups ( = 0.813), while quality of life showed statistically significant improvements favoring the experimental group ( = 0.036). The quality of the evidence was collected or measured from low to high.

CONCLUSIONS

People with pelvic floor disorders show high rates of adherence to pelvic floor muscle exercise and experience an improved quality of life in the short term, but more research is needed on the design of homogeneous systems to measure compliance and adherence to exercise-based treatments.