Background: The prevalence of urinary symptoms and infections among female garment factory workers in Bangladesh - a large developing country - is largely unknown. Garment sector is this country's main economic growth engine.
Objectives: This paper focuses on garment industry workers and compares the findings with another group of low socioeconomic status working women.
Methods: Urinary tract symptoms (UTS) were determined by self-reported survey including International Consultation on Incontinence Modular Questionnaire-Female Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (ICIQ-FLUTS) and urinary tract infection (UTI) was determined among a subset population by urine dipstick tests.
Results: Data were collected from 310 garment workers and 297 comparison workers. About one third of garment workers (31.94%) and comparison workers (29.97%) could take up to 3 toilet breaks in a day. Garment workers reported to be more sexually active and menstruation was more common among them compared to comparison workers. They reported a significantly higher prevalence of malodorous urine and vaginal discharge. Garment workers were found to have a significantly higher ICIQ-FLUTS score of voiding than comparison workers (0.44 vs. 0.27; p-value = 0.0167).Among the study respondents, 148 garment workers and 134 other workers provided urine samples and 21 (7.45%) were found to have UTI. After considering all the risk factors in multivariate model, garment work had a significant impact on the probability of having UTI with Odds Ratio of 5.46 (p-value = 0.0374; 95% CI = 1.10, 26.97) compared to other workers.
Conclusions: This study highlights the prevalence and burden of urinary symptoms and infections among female worker populations in Bangladesh.
Keywords: Developing countries; garment workers of Bangladesh; low socioeconomic status; working women.