Predictive factors of the outcome of primary surgical treatment of stress incontinence in women.

Forty-five women with stress incontinence (mean age 50 years) scheduled for surgical treatment randomized either to retropubic urethrocystopexy or to pubococcygeal repair were prospectively studied. Fifty healthy women were used as a reference group. No difference emerged concerning the outcome for these two surgical techniques in terms of success rate. Consequently, the subjects were treated as one group. The aim of the study was to test for predictive factors of the outcome of surgical treatment. Age of the patient, duration of stress incontinence, parity, personality, psychological and social factors were investigated. The outcome of surgical treatment was estimated both subjectively and objectively (pad test). The women were classified as cured or improved/failure. There was an 80% concordance between subjective and objective methods. In the stress incontinent women who were improved/failure one year after surgery, a high degree of neuroticism, low degree of extraversion, high degree of somatic anxiety, psychic anxiety, psychasthenia and suspicion was observed compared to the cured women. Furthermore, the improved/failure women had a lower level of social integration, in terms of loneliness compared to the cured women. Our findings point to the need of psychosocial support and care in addition to the medical treatment. According to a stepwise logistic regression analysis three variables have been found of importance as predictors of the outcome of the surgical treatment: duration of stress incontinence, neuroticism and age of patient.