QUESTION: What is the most cost-effective way of providing pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) to prevent or treat postpartum incontinence? DESIGN: Meta-analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis of models of care included in a recent Cochrane systematic review. PARTICIPANTS: Pregnant and postnatal women. INTERVENTION: Supervised PFMT for preventing or treating urinary and/or faecal incontinence. OUTCOME MEASURES: Postpartum urinary or faecal incontinence. ANALYSIS: We examined the comparative incremental cost effectiveness of different approaches to successfully prevent or cure one case of incontinence. Costs were valued in Australian dollars using publicly available market rates and enterprise agreements as of 2019. Comparisons involving group-based treatment approaches were subject to sensitivity analyses where the numbers of patients attending each group were varied to identify thresholds where recommendations change. RESULTS: Seventeen trials were included for meta-analysis. Three models of care were clinically effective: individually supervised PFMT during pregnancy to prevent urinary incontinence (model 1), group-based PFMT during pregnancy to prevent or treat urinary incontinence (model 2) and individually supervised postnatal PFMT to treat urinary incontinence and prevent or treat faecal incontinence (model 3). The health service costs per urinary incontinence case prevented or cured were $768 for model 1, and $1,970 for model 3. However, model 2 generated a cost saving of $14 if there were eight participants per session, with greater savings if more participants attend. The health service cost per faecal incontinence case prevented or cured was $2,784 (model 3). CONCLUSION: Providing group-based PFMT for all women during pregnancy is likely more efficient than individual PFMT for incontinent women postnatally; however, providing PFMT for postnatal women with urinary incontinence should not be discounted because of the added known benefit for preventing and treating faecal incontinence.

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