Sexual abuse survivors have a significantly higher incidence of genitourinary dysfunction symptoms, including stress and urge incontinence, and voluntary urinary retention. Abuse survivors should be questioned about these symptoms, and evaluation and therapy should be recommended. This preliminary study demonstrates that the impact of psychological counseling in addition to medical therapy for urinary dysfunction in this group of patients deserves further study.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of in-office physiotherapy for stress, mixed and urge incontinence. All subjects underwent urodynamics. Those with stress incontinence received pressure biofeedback pelvic floor exercises and electrical stimulation. Those with detrusor instability and mixed incontinence received bladder drills, anticholinergic medications, electrical stimulation and pressure biofeedback pelvic floor exercises. All those with atrophic vaginitis received vaginal estrogen. Weekly treatment sessions for 4 weeks and then monthly for 2 months were directed by a trained gynecologic nurse. Weekly bladder diaries were kept. Outcome measures included diary-recorded incontinence episodes and subjective reporting of continence. One hundred and four women completed the program. Weekly incontinence episodes decreased from 22 to 2 (<0.05) in both stress and detrusor instability/mixed incontinence groups. An average of 4.5 sessions over 6.1 weeks was necessary for optimal response; 86% reported subjective improvement. It was concluded that multimodality treatment of incontinence leads to a 90% reduction in incontinence episodes. The relative contribution of each treatment modality requires further study.

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