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Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a bothering condition affecting one in four women, but can be effectively treated with eHealth, including pelvic floor muscle training. Radboudumc research now shows that intensive eHealth usage among women with SUI is one of the keys to treatment success. This is an important finding because often eHealth still operates as a black box, in which it is unknown which factors contribute to effectiveness.
In a recent study, general practitioners and researchers Lotte Firet and Doreth Teunissen have shed light on how eHealth usage correlated with treatment outcomes and which participants are mostly likely to benefit. Their research focused on Baasoverjeblaas.nl (in Dutch), a web-based intervention featuring pelvic floor muscle training. This recent study, published in March 2024 in BMC Primary Care, is part of an implementation project led by Pim Assendelft and emeritus professor Toine Lagro-Janssen, in collaboration with the departments of Primary and Community Care and IQ Health.
SUI is characterized by the involuntary loss of urine during activities like coughing, sneezing or jumping. Many women with SUI do not seek help because they feel ashamed or because they think that it is normal part of ageing. EHealth interventions, such as Baasoverjeblaas.nl, offer a discreet self-management approach and thereby lowering the threshold to seek treatment.
The study recruited over seven hundred female participants in 2018 and 2019, who accessed the website without a healthcare professional’s referral. The researchers analyzed participant’s logging behavior, revealing that over half were categorized as ‘low users’, a quarter as ‘intermediate users’ and a quarter as ‘high users’. High users accessed more modules of the eHealth intervention and utilized it for a longer duration compared to low and intermediate users. Consequently, high users demonstrated greater improvements in urinary incontinence, symptom severity reduction, and enhanced quality of life. Moreover, the study showed that treatment success was more likely among women with higher expectations and previous pelvic floor muscle training experience.
Healthcare professionals, such as general practitioners, can use this knowledge in their daily practice. They can enhance treatment effect by stimulating eHealth usage and they can select those women who are more likely to profit from eHealth. The website, Baasoverjeblaas.nl, is not accessible for new participants, but we can now recommend women or healthcare professionals to view treatment options at the patient information website Thuisarts.nl (in Dutch).
Publication
Firet L, Teunissen TAM, Kool RB, Akkermans RP, Lagro-Janssen ALM, van der Vaart H, Assendelft WJJ. The relation between usage of an eHealth intervention for stress urinary incontinence and treatment ouctomes: an observational study. BMC Prim Car. 2024 Mar 16;25(1): 89. doi: 10.1186/s12875-024-02325-4
