OBJECTIVES: Association between patient perceptions of their physicians and discussion of urinary incontinence (UI) with their physician was assessed.

METHODS: A sample of individuals with urinary incontinence (UI) was selected from the 2016 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). Individuals were identified as having UI and included in the sample if they indicated in a MCBS self-report item that they lost urine control 2 to 3 times a month, about once a week, or more than once a week. Exclusion criteria were having proxy responders, residing in long-term care, diagnosis of dementia or end-stage renal disease, or disability, or missing responses on any of the study variables. MCBS items on patient perception of the physician they generally saw were used to create a 11-item patient perception scale. Receiver operator characteristics curves (ROC) and sensitivity analysis were used to determine a perception score for categorizing perception of physicians as favorable or unfavorable. Logistic regression using SAS version 9.4 was used to assess multivariable association between the patient perception of their physician and likelihood talking to their doctor about UI after adjusting for demographic and clinical variables.

RESULTS: A total of 1,372 beneficiaries were included in the sample. Patient perception of physician scores ranged from 15 to 44, mean = 36.57 (Standard Deviation = 5.29). Cronbach alpha was 0.93. ROC and sensitivity analysis identified a perception score of 30 as a cutoff for favorable perception. Beneficiaries with favorable perception of their physicians (perception scores ≥ 30) were more likely to talk to their physicians about UI than beneficiaries with unfavorable perceptions (perception scores < 30), odds ratio = 1.55, 95% confidence interval=1.03 to 2.35, p-value = 0.038.

CONCLUSIONS: Beneficiaries with more favorable perception of their physicians were more likely to talk to them about experiencing UI.