Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) have a detrimental effect on quality of life and can affect women physically, psychologically and socially.
LUTS can be divided into three categories:
| Classification of LUTS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Group | Symptom | Definition |
| Storage symptoms | Urinary incontinence | Any involuntary leakage of urine |
| Stress incontinence | Involuntary leakage on effort or exertion, or on sneezing or coughing | |
| Urge incontinence | Involuntary leakage accompanied by or immediately preceded by urgency | |
| Mixed incontinence | Involuntary leakage associated with urgency and also with exertion, effort, sneezing or coughing | |
| Urgency | A sudden compelling desire to pass urine, which is difficult to defer | |
| Increased daytime frequency | The complaint of having to void too often during the day | |
| Nocturia | The complaint of having to wake one or more times at night to void | |
| Voiding symptoms | Slow stream | The perception of reduced urine flow |
| Intermittent stream | Urine flow that stops and starts | |
| Hesitancy | Difficulty in initiating micturition, resulting in a delay in the onset of voiding after the individual is ready to pass urine | |
| Terminal dribble | A prolonged final part of micturition, when the flow has slowed to a trickle/dribble | |
| Straining | The use of muscular effort to either initiate, maintain or improve the urinary stream | |
| Postmicturition symptoms | Feeling of incomplete emptying | Self-explanatory |
| Postmicturition dribble | Involuntary loss of urine immediately after finishing passing urine, usually after rising from the toilet | |