Assessment of the Prevalence of Urinary Tract Infection among Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common in pregnant women mainly caused by Escherichia coli and should be treated correctly to prevent complications in both the mother and her child. Pregnancy is associated with physiological and functional urinary tract changes which promote ascending infections from the urethra. In this paper, we aimed to assess the prevalence of UTI in pregnant and non-pregnant women in the KSA and to measure their awareness about signs, symptoms and complications of this infection. It was conducted through a questionnaire, among pregnant and non-pregnant women online. It consists of 15 questions including socio-demographic and other questions such as time and number of infections, type of treatment, symptoms associated with the infection, weight of child during birth. Our results showed that about 46.3% of participating women had UTI, 5.6% of them were diabetic. About 66.8% of women become infected at age range from 20-39 years old. Also, 22.3% women had once UTI during pregnancy, 13.3% had twice and 21.7% had more than twice during pregnancy. The child's weight during birth from UT infected mother was low in 21.9%. Pregnant women who refuse to receive treatment will be suspected to many complications and their children. From these results we can conclude that high percentage (half of them) of participating women were infected in urinary tract and the most affected age between 20-39 years old and some of them with diabetes. So, we can recommend to introduce educational seminars to pregnant or non-pregnant women to be more awareness with UTIs, signs and symptoms and complications and how to protect themselves from infection.