Exploring the effect of performing pelvic floor muscles strengthening exercises on post-prostatectomy patients’ urinary incontinence and quality of life

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of training pelvic-floor muscles on post-prostatectomy patients’ urinary incontinence and quality of life. This study will be a randomized clinical trial. Sixty patients who are suffering from benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH) will participate in the study after meeting the study inclusion criteria and signing written informed consent. Accordingly, they will be allocated to control and experiment groups through blocked randomized method. The inclusion criteria for the participants includes: seeking candidacy to undergo suprapubic prostate surgery, being literate enough to read and write, and aging between 50 and 75 years old. Meanwhile, the patients who are unwilling to participate in the study or to change the dosage of the medication prescribed for their urinary incontinence will be excluded from the study. The research will be carried out as follows: initially, both groups will fill in the demographic, urinary incontinence and quality of life questionnaires prior to intervention. Then, the experiment group will be trained by the researcher for pelvic-floor muscles exercises (PFMEs) while the control group uses only the routine trainings in ward. The PFMEs will be performed 3 times a day within 12 weeks nonstop. Patients will primarily do the contractions for 3 seconds and relax for 5 seconds afterward. Then, the number of contractions will be gradually increased to 90-100 per day. Self-report checklists and educational pamphlets about prostate surgery urinary incontinence and pelvic-floor muscles exercising will be given to the experiment group. Patients will fill in the urinary incontinence and quality of life questionnaires at the end of the third month. Finally, the data from the control and the experiment groups will be compared with each other. The researcher will attend urology clinic once a week while contacting the patients on phone every week in the first month, and at the end of the second and third months throughout the research.

Tehran University of Medical Sciences