The Objective
Bladder leaks are an issue for many women across the UK and leading agency Saatchi & Saatchi, alongside their client Always Discreet, wanted to understand more about the experiences of peri-menopausal, menopausal and women who have experienced incontinence, with leaking bladders.
The Research
As bladder leakage and incontinence is a sensitive topic, care was taken with the research design to ensure that women knew about the topic they would be asked to feedback on. Sensitive questions which were identified, also had a clear option for women that allowed them to choose to decline answering if they wished to. The survey consisted of 20 questions, delivered via online CAWI and 2,000 respondents competed the survey. Data was split by age, region, peri-menopausal, menopausal and those who had experienced bladder leaks as an adult.
The Result
Over half (57%) of women in the research had experienced incontinence as an adult which rose in those who were menopausal. three in 10 of these women would not want to discuss this with anyone with almost one fifth (19%) stating embarrassment as the reason. 43% of the women interviewed did admitted to not knowing how to do pelvic floor exercises with 45% stating they did pelvic floor exercises less than once a month or never. Despite this 87% agreed that ‘how to do pelvic floor exercises’ should be discussed more openly but 29% felt that their GP was not well equipped to support women going through pelvic floor weakness. 57% of women also said that they considered incontinence as a symptom of older age and not a symptom specifically associated with the menopause.
61% of the women interviewed did not feel prepared before experiencing peri-menopausal or menopausal symptoms with those feeling this way citing lack of education (24%), not recognising the symptoms (22%) and not feeling physically and mentally ready as the main reasons why. Hot flushes (75%), night sweats (72%), mood swings (70%), tiredness/fatigue (69%) and weight gain (61%) were thought to be the top symptoms of the peri-menopause and menopause.
OnePoll delivered excel results tables to Saatchi & Saatchi to incorporate into their creative campaign for Always Discreet.