Seyede Samira Tabatabai, Mohammad Kamali, Behnoosh Vasaghi-Gharamaleki , Narges Shafaroudi,
Volume 9, Issue 6 (3-2016)
Background and Aim: Behavior of people in the face of disease and help seeking is very different. Considering the high prevalence of urinary stress incontinence in female athletes, knowing their experiences of help seeking and identify of their needs, can be used to plan treatment strategies based on the needs of female athletes with stress urinary incontinence and shifting them to receive health care and rehabilitation services. The purpose of this study is to understand experiences of this group of female athletes from help seeking.
Materials and Methods: This is a phenomenological study and sampling was purposeful and performed after identifying professional female athletes by oral questions. Data gathering was semi-structured deep interview. The results of 29 individual and one focus group interview were analyzed using Colaizzi method.
Results: According to the results of this study, the findings were categorized to 3 themes and 11 sub-themes. Themes are self-treatment, do not help seek and use of prevention strategies.
Conclusion: Female athletes with stress urinary incontinence do not have correct awareness of available treatment for prevention and rehabilitation care of this condition and consider this condition as a part of sport injuries due to professionalism and they have less incentive to seek its cause and treatment.
Key words: Stress urinary incontinence, Experience of help seeking, Female athlete