Dietary and Fluid-Intake Habits in Patients with Various Types of Urinary Incontinence: A Preliminary Study

Background/Objectives: Urinary incontinence (UI) is common in women, particularly during and after the menopausal transition, and may both influence and be influenced by dietary and fluid-intake behaviours. This exploratory study described self-reported dietary and fluid-intake habits in women with different UI subtypes and explored their associations with pelvic floor symptom burden and self-reported fluid restriction. Energy and nutrient intake was not quantified. Methods: This exploratory, cross-sectional, single-centre study included 87 women aged 18–84 years with stress (SUI; n = 23), urgency (UUI; n = 21), or mixed (MUI; n = 43) UI, who reported UI at least weekly. Participants completed a custom dietary and fluid-intake questionnaire, the Incontinence Quality of Life Questionnaire (I-QOL), and the Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory-20 (PFDI-20). Associations were assessed using rank correlations and proportional-odds ordinal logistic regression, with Benjamini–Hochberg correction used to address multiplicity in exploratory item-level analyses. Results: No individual diet-PFDI association remained statistically significant after Benjamini–Hochberg correction across the complete 100-test matrix. In the adjusted model, an urgency component was associated with greater self-reported fluid restriction (adjusted cumulative OR = 2.92; 95% CI, 1.18–7.20), whereas each 10-year increase in age was associated with lower odds of greater restriction (adjusted cumulative OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.51–0.92). Conclusions: Greater self-reported fluid restriction was independently associated with an urgency component and with younger age, whereas no individual dietary or fluid-intake item remained statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Given the potential risk of the practice, these findings support asking women with urgency symptoms about fluid restriction during clinical consultations. Prospective studies using a validated quantitative dietary instrument are needed to determine whether dietary and fluid-intake habits affect pelvic floor symptom burden.