Women report sustained benefits from attending group-based education about pelvic floor muscles: a longitudinal qualitative study

Abstract

Question: Among women who have participated in group-based education about the pelvic floor, what are their perceptions of the program and the group format?

Design: Exploratory longitudinal qualitative study.

Participants: Community-dwelling women aged ≥ 18 years who participated in three or four sessions of pelvic floor education in a group format at a university clinic.

Data extraction and analysis: Semi-structured group or individual interviews were conducted at three time points: 1 week, 3 months and ≥ 5 months after the education activity. Data were inductively content analysed and independently coded, with iterative theme development.

Results: Women considered the content and delivery appropriate and useful. New knowledge was assimilated and shared with others, and many tried to adopt pelvic floor muscle training in daily life. The women felt that the education sessions might benefit other women, with and without pelvic floor dysfunction symptoms, and that such education would ideally be more widely available. A perception of the value of the education persisted over time, even though maintenance of some health-promoting behaviours, such as pelvic floor muscle training, decreased.

Conclusion: The pelvic floor group education sessions appeared to fulfil the purpose of increasing knowledge about pelvic floor (dys)function and applying this in daily life. Overall, the participants, who had completed three or four of the four sessions, found the program to be useful. A unique feature of this study was longitudinal data collection and it seemed that the perception of value persisted over time.

Keywords: Health education; Pelvic floor; Physical therapy; Qualitative; Women’s health physiotherapy.

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