Aspects on the actual practice of surgical management of urinary incontinence in Norway and Finland.

OBJECTIVE

To elucidate aspects of the actual practice of surgical management of urinary incontinence in Norway and Finland.

METHOD: A questionnaire about preoperative diagnostic procedures, type of surgery, follow-up procedure and number of operations per center and per surgeon per year (1995) was sent to all departments of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Norway and Finland.

RESULT: Thirty-one (86%) of the Norwegian and 26 (90%) of the Finnish departments returned the questionnaire. More than 90% of the departments performed preoperative urodynamic evaluation. Burch colposuspension was used by more than 90% of the departments in the two countries. Generally the number of procedures per center and per department was low. Twenty-nine and 12% of the departments respectively did not perform any follow-up after surgery. Only 16% of the Norwegian and 23% of the Finnish centers had controlled results of surgery.

CONCLUSION

There seems to be a need for criteria of good clinical practice or a reference program for all steps of surgical management of stress incontinence in order to stimulate the process of quality development of this treatment.