Objective: To identify the relationship of obesity and stress urinary incontinence and of obesity and urodynamic parameters in patients with stress urinary incontinence (SUI).

Study design: The study included 98 women who were clinically diagnosed as having stress urinary incontinence and 102 women, the control group, who had no stress urinary incontinence. We compared body mass index (BMI) as a parameter of obesity between the two groups. BMI was defined as weight (in kilograms) divided by height (in square meters). All patients with SUI underwent urodynamic tests, and we determined the relationship between BMI and urodynamic parameters by using the Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results: There was no difference in age between the two groups. However, BMI was significantly higher in women with SUI than in the control group. There were more vaginal deliveries and higher parity in women with SUI than in the control group. BMI was significantly higher in women with SUI than in the control group only in the younger group, while parity and number of vaginal deliveries were higher in the SUI group than control group among all age groups. The coefficient of multiple logistic regression between obesity and SUI was .131 (r = .131). There was no relationship between BMI and urodynamic parameters among patients with SUI. The average intraabdominal pressure was significantly increased in the obese group over that in the nonobese group. Correlation between BMI and intraabdominal pressure showed a close relationship.

Conclusion: BMI was higher in the SUI group than control group. Obesity may be an important etiologic factor in SUI but did not influence urodynamic parameters, and there was no relationship between BMI and urodynamic parameters.