Dietary Intake and Symptom Severity in Women with Fecal Incontinence

The goal of this study was to determine whether dietary fat/fiber intake was associated with fecal incontinence (FI) severity. Planned supplemental analysis of a randomized clinical trial evaluating the impact of 12-week treatment with percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation versus sham in reducing FI severity in women. All subjects completed a food screener questionnaire at baseline. FI severity was measured using the seven-item validated St. Mark’s (Vaizey) FI severity scale. Participants also completed a 7-day bowel diary capturing the number of FI-free days, FI events, and bowel movements per week. Spearman’s correlations were calculated between dietary, St. Mark’s score, and bowel diary measures. One hundred and eighty-six women were included in this analysis. Mean calories from fats were 32