Incontinence in women: different response rates may introduce bias in community studies of pad consumption.

Epidemiological surveys will be biased if subgroups of patients are over-represented among non-responders. Severe urinary incontinence may be associated with debilitating morbidity which renders cooperation impossible. Under such circumstances even a response rate of 90% may be too low to ensure valid prevalence estimates.' To elucidate this problem we conducted a survey among incontinent women who used pads. The design enabled us to outline the response patterns of incontinent women of different ages and with different severity of incontinence.