Continence nurse treatment of women's urinary symptoms.

The aim of this study was to establish how accurately a trained continence nurse could allocate appropriate second-line conservative treatment to women without urodynamic investigations. Depending on the number of patients coming taking up the service, there were between five and 12 nurses operating at any one time. Women aged 40 years and over, of which there were 2421 reporting lower urinary tract symptoms, were randomly allocated to a new nurse-led continence service. Of these women, 450 subsequently underwent urodynamic investigation, before which the nurses documented which second-line conservative treatment would be appropriate. The results showed that of all women with detrusor overactivity, 79.1% were correctly allocated anticholinergic treatment, and 64.8% were allocated pelvic floor exercises (PFE). Of all women with urodynamic stress incontinence, 88.8% were correctly allocated PFE, and 43.4% were allocated anticholinergic therapy. Of all women with mixed incontinence, 44.8% were correctly allocated both PFE and anticholinergic therapy, while 52.1% were allocated only one treatment. This study showed that a trained continence nurse is able to allocate conservative treatment appropriately the majority of women without the need for urodynamic investigation. This indicated that the management of urinary dysfunction by a team of trained, dedicated nurses has the potential to reduce waiting lists for urodynamic investigation, avoid unnecessary investigations and achieve greater patient satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]