Anticholinergic drugs, bladder retraining and their combination for urge urinary incontinence: a pilot randomised trial

Bladder retraining and anticholinergic drugs in women with urge urinary incontinence need to be compared. Women with urge urinary incontinence were recruited by advertisements, from primary care and from a urogynaecology clinic. Women were randomised using a web page to bladder retraining, anticholinergic drugs or both and followed up at 3 and 12 months. No blinding was attempted. The primary outcomes were the trial process and the Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q) quality-of-life measure. Recruitment was much slower than anticipated. There were no differences in the OAB-q at 12 months (87.9 SD 11.6 bladder retraining, 81.6 SD 19.3 drug therapy and 88.9 SD 9.9 combination) but dry mouth was more common in those taking drugs. It is feasible to run a pragmatic randomised trial with 12-month follow-up for women with urinary urge incontinence. This will require about 500 participants per arm.