Prevalence of symptoms of urinary tract infection in women.

Infections of the urinary tract are among the most frequent of all infections, especially in women (Kass, 1956). Most studies of the prevalence of symptoms referable to the urinary tract have been based on patients consulting their practitioners. However, such symptoms do not always lead to a woman attending a doctor. There do not appear to be any published estimates of the prevalence of urinary tract symptoms in representative samples of the general population in this country. Urinary tract infections are of importance in themselves as a troublesome cause of discomfort and sometimes of ill-health. They may also progress to chronic pyelonephritis and hence be aetiologically related to the morbidity and mortality of chronic renal failure and hypertension. At present there is considerable controversy as to how often acute urinary tract infections do lead to renal damage and how often renal failure is an end result of acute urinary tract infections. An assessment of the prevalence of urinary tract infection in the general population is an important step towards determining their importance in this context.