The symptom of vaginal bulging in nulliparous women aged 25–64 years: a national cohort study

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Vaginal bulging is considered the key symptom for genital organ prolapse. The aim was to investigate the age-related prevalence and frequency of symptomatic pelvic organ prolapse (sPOP) and other pelvic floor symptoms in nonpregnant nullipara aged 25–64 years. METHODS: This national postal and web-based questionnaire survey was conducted in 2014 and included four independent random samples of women aged 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, and 55–64 years. The association of sPOP with demographics and with other pelvic floor conditions and with clustering to other pelvic floor conditions, was presented in women with and without sPOP. Logistic regression was used to identify and rank variables associated with symptomatic prolapse. RESULTS: The response rate was 52% (n = 10,187) and 726 nullipara confirmed sPOP. Women with sPOP were younger (p < 0.001), shorter (p < 0.001), and more often overweight and obese (p < 0.01) compared with asymptomatic women. Previous surgery for prolapse was reported by 15 women only (0.16%). Symptomatic POP decreased from 9.8% in the youngest age group (25–34 years) to 6.1% in the oldest (55–64 years) (p < 0.0001). Symptomatic POP was more often experienced as bothersome (p = 0.012), and aggravated by straining and heavy lifting (p = 0.003), in older women. Vaginal/vulval chafing/rubbing feeling was most prevalent among the youngest 14.2%, decreasing to 7.8% among the oldest (<0.0001). This symptom occurred three to five times more often in those with sPOP (p < 0.0001). Clustering of pelvic floor symptoms was four times more prevalent in women with sPOP (23.2% versus 6.1%) (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of sPOP in this study was contradictory to most earlier reports, which have shown that genital prolapse is rare in nullipara. The explanation of our results may be the low probability of the clinical condition, the dominance of weak and infrequent symptoms, and not least clustering of alternative conditions mimicking sPOP. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00192-018-3684-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users