Osteoporosis and Stress Urinary Incontinence in Women: A National Health Insurance Database Study

We aimed to determine the influence of osteoporosis and stress urinary incontinence in women. We hypothesized that women with osteoporosis had an increased risk of stress urinary incontinence. This retrospective study used data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance database from 2005–2009. The study population was screened to identify women (age ≥ 40 years) newly diagnosed with osteoporosis (ICD-9-CM code = 733.0, 733.1). The osteoporosis cohort included 6125, and the non-osteoporosis cohort included 12,250 participants. The newly diagnosed stress urinary incontinence incidence was calculated to determine the influence of osteoporosis and stress urinary incontinence. We used the Cox proportional hazards model to predict the effects of stress urinary incontinence and the Kaplan–Meier analysis to estimate the cumulative incidence of stress urinary incontinence in women. Participants with osteoporosis experienced a 1.79 times higher risk than that of the non-osteoporosis group (95% CI = 1.28–2.51) for stress urinary incontinence, regardless of age. We did not observe a higher risk of stress urinary incontinence in participants with pathological fractures compared to those with simple osteoporosis. Our data emphasized that physicians and nurses should conduct urinary incontinence screening in women with osteoporosis to recommend proper treatment, medical help or to bring the disorder to light.