Objectives: We investigated (1) whether sexual, physical, or emotional abuse experienced either as a child or as an adolescent/adult is associated with symptoms of urinary frequency, urgency, and nocturia, and (2) the extent to which the observed association between abuse and urologic symptoms may be causal.
Methods: Analyses are based on data from the Boston Area Community Health (BACH) survey, a community-based epidemiologic study of many different urologic symptoms and risk factors. BACH used a multistage stratified cluster sample to recruit 5506 adults, aged 30-79 yr (2301 men, 3205 women; 1770 black [African American], 1877 Hispanic, and 1859 white respondents).
Results: The symptoms considered are common, with 33% of BACH respondents reporting urinary frequency, 12% reporting urgency, and 28% reporting nocturia. All three symptoms are positively associated with childhood and adolescent/adult sexual, physical, and emotional abuse (p<0.05), with abuse significantly increasing the odds of urinary frequency by a factor ranging from 1.6 to 1.9, the odds of urgency by a factor from 2.0 to 2.3, and the odds of nocturia by a factor from 1.3 to 1.5.
Conclusions: Our analyses extend previous work. First, we show a strong association between abuse and urinary frequency, urgency, and nocturia in a community-based random sample. Second, we move beyond discussion of statistical association and find considerable evidence to suggest that the relationship between abuse and these symptoms may be causal.