Mary-Lynne Van Poelgeest
President, World Federation of Incontinence and Pelvic Problems (WFIPP)
World Continence Week raises awareness of incontinence, aiming to destigmatise it along with various stakeholders to spread real impact and facts.
The World Federation of Incontinence and Pelvic Problems (WFIPP) ‘took over’ World Continence Week from the International Continence Society (ICS) around eight years ago. Both myself and WFIPP Treasurer, Tomasz Michalek, are members of the ICS, the European Association of Urology (EAU) and other scientific societies. Michalek is also co-founder of WFIPP.
Annual World Continence Week
WFIPP has been organising World Continence Week with ever-increasing success year on year. World Continence Week is a major global awareness-raising campaign — a key activity for WFIPP in our annual programme. It takes place each year, on the third week of June. This year’s dates are on the 17th–23rd June.
1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men suffer from
some form of incontinence/leakage, and
it is not just an issue for the elderly.
What can be done to remove incontinence stigma and taboo?
As a society, we must address all the problems involving any form of urinary or faecal incontinence (leakage) in a factual manner. We need to stress the impact and burden that these conditions entail for patients and their families, including the huge impact on quality of life and, increasingly, recognising its impact on mental health.
We must strive to take incontinence out of the taboo sphere. This involves making a lot of noise, awareness-raising campaigns, such as World Continence Week and working from the premise of a multidisciplinary approach with patient advocates, clinicians, allied health professionals, payers, researchers and official institutions in terms of influencing policymakers.
Facts and figures: 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men
We need accurate data and statistics. The figures speak for themselves: 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men suffer from some form of incontinence/leakage, and it is not just an issue for the elderly.
Quite the contrary, for young women especially who may experience it during exercise, after childbirth or menopause. For men, it may arise as a consequence of prostate cancer or other interventions; either after a radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy. In men, these issues have only recently started to become addressed. The burden of incontinence is massive — and we need to address it now.
See this year’s toolkit and logo: wfipp.org/resource and WFIPP’s digital tool supportincontinence.org – in 7 languages.
