Prevalence and risk factors of fecal incontinence in community-dwelling elderly

Abstract

We conducted a questionnaire survey on bowel habits and symptoms in 2,250Japanese community-dwelling elderly individuals. The questionnaire was developedbased on a constipation scoring system using the Wexner score. Among 1,890 respondents, 1,709 elderly individuals aged 60 years or older were analyzed in this study. Of these, fecal, urinary, and gas incontinence were prevalent in 5.3％, 20.5％, and 29.8％, respectively. The identified risk factors of fecal incontinence included urinary incontinence in men（odds ratio［OR］：20.1）, and urinary incontinence（OR：5.8）and gas incontinence（OR：5.0）in women.