Pelvic Floor Disorders
Conditions
Keywords
Female, Sport, Education
Brief summary
Pelvic floor dysfunctions (PFD) are especially prevalent among females who practice and compete in sport. One of the main reason is the great physical effort required to achieve the maximal sports performance. As conservational management, increasing the females' information is an important research line. However, gender stereotypes, embarrassment and normalization among females make it difficult to seek professional care. In this situation, prevention or management of PFD is limited. New technologies could facilitate engaging virtual educational approaches. This study will evaluate the effects of an educational intervention compounded by three sessions (60 min of duration) with one week apart, about PFD, habits related with it, and existing gender stereotypes. To this end, all female who practice and compete in any sport in Spain will be invited to attend an educational online intervention with theoretical-practical content about PFD. As eligibility criteria, participants should train and compete in any sport, and have federative license from regional or national sports federation at the moment of the start of the study. Participants should have at least 16 years old. The investigators expect 400 athletes to fulfill the questionnaires, of which the investigators expect 200 to attend the educational intervention. Before the educational intervention, all females will reply an anonymous questionnaire to inform about their knowledge of PFD, daily practices related to PFD, influencing gender stereotypes and PFD self-reported diagnosis. One month later, this questionnaire will be sent to females (both athletes who attended the educational intervention or not) to describe changes after attending the online educational intervention and compared to those females who did not attend it. The main outcomes will be the level of knowledge about PF, the number of habits potentially related to PFD, and score of gender stereotyped beliefs. As an additional outcome, it will be considered the PFD self-reported symptomatology.
Detailed description
The educational intervention consisted on three 60-minutes online sessions, organized as follows: Session 1: anatomical information about pelvic floor and exercises about pelvic floor consciousness; Session 2: function and dysfunction of pelvic floor and exercises related; Session 3: risk factor for pelvic floor dysfunctions and exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor musculature.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALEducation about pelvic floor
The three educational sessions will last 60 minutes, as follows: session1, anatomy of pelvic floor; session2, function and dysfunction of pelvic floor; session3, risk factor for pelvic floor dysfunctions.
Sponsors
University of the Balearic Islands
Study design
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
A quasiexperimental controlled trial is designed, with two arms: an experimental group and a control group.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
FEMALE
Age
16 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* To train and compete in any of the sport modality. * To have federative license from a regional or national sport federation in the season when study starts.
Exclusion criteria
* Non applicable
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge about pelvic floor | One month | Change in the level of knowledge about pelvic floor according to the responses to an online questionnaire after attending the online educational sessions and compared to those females who do not attend educational sessions. To assess it, participants will reply an ad-hoc questionnaire with ten multiple-choice questions about pelvic floor structures. It will be counted the number of correct answers (0 points as the worst punctuation, 10 points as the best punctuation). |
| Habits related to pelvic floor dysfunctions | One month | Change in number of habits that participants often carry out during their daily life, potentially related to pelvic floor dysfunctions, after attending the online educational sessions and compared to those athletes who do not attend educational sessions. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Gender stereotypes beliefs | One month | Change in the score related to gender stereotypes beliefs, after attending the online educational sessions and compared to those females who do not attend educational sessions. This score will be obtained after the sum of the factor1 and factor3 from the validated questionnaire CEGAFD (in English: beliefs and gender-based stereotypes concerning physical activity and sport). For the factor1 and factor3, females will rate from 1(completely disagree) to 4 (completely agree) to 7 and 5 gender stereotypes statements, respectively. The sum of the two factors will be the score of gender stereotypes beliefs (from 12 points as minimal gender stereotypes beliefs - 7 points for factor1 and 5 points for factor3 -, to 48 points as the maximal gender stereotypes beliefs - 28 points for factor1 and 20 points for factor3). |
| Occurrence of symptoms related to pelvic floor dysfunctions | One month | It will be considered if pelvic floor dysfunction is self-reported through the questionnaire that athletes will reply. To this end, athletes will reply five yes-no questions regarding the occurrence of the main symptoms related to pelvic floor dysfunctions. In case of affirmative response in any of these diagnostic questions, it will be considered that this athlete has the symptom related to pelvic floor dysfunction. Between-group differences were considered. |
Countries
Spain
Outcome results
None listed