Research summary · Women's sport
Urinary incontinence evidence in women athletes
An umbrella review and new analysis examine prevalence and sport-related factors associated with urinary incontinence in adult women athletes.
- Publication year
- 2026
- First published online
- Publication type
- Umbrella review, de novo meta-analysis and meta-regression
- Journal
- Sports Medicine
- Population / context
- Adult women athletes · Multiple sports
What the publication reports
Fourteen reviews were assessed and 32 primary studies covering 120 cohorts and 4,649 athletes entered the de novo analysis. Prevalence was about four in ten overall, with large variation; broad sport labels did not explain that variation, while weekly training volume showed a hypothesis-generating association.
Limits and interpretation
Most included reviews had low or critically low confidence, primary evidence was cross-sectional and heterogeneity was substantial. The training-volume association does not establish mechanism or an individual threshold.
Read the source
Consult the original record for the full author list, methods, references, funding and competing-interest disclosures.
Urinary Incontinence in Women Athletes: Umbrella Review and Meta-analysis of Sport-Related Factors
Original publication / indexed recordPMID: 41989514DOI: 10.1007/s40279-026-02438-zFull text at the sourceReader discussion
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