Therapeutic education and intermittent self-catheterization: recommendations for an educational program and a literature review

Purpose: To review the literature and to clarify the recommendations for therapeutic education programs for intermittent self-catheterization.

Materials and methods: The literature on Medline, Pubmed, and Cochrane Library, with specific keywords, as well as the recommendations based on expert consensus.

Results: Clean intermittent self-catheterization (CICS) is the gold standard for managing chronic urinary retention, which allows the patients to improve their quality of life and to reduce the complications of upper urinary tract infections. Patient education needs to have a structured procedure in order to evaluate the ability to understand, accept and perform CISC.

Conclusion: Teaching self-catheterization is now well known; nevertheless, the effectiveness of CISC educational therapeutic programs remains to be demonstrated.