The Impact of Inflation on Online Pricing of Protective Incontinence Products

Objectives: Like many industries, personal-care goods including absorbent products has been hit by record-high inflation rates, reaching 8.2% as of September 2022. Incontinence products are often not covered by federal assistance programs nor health insurance leading to a large cost burden on many patients. Using publicly available online data, we analyzed cost trends of absorbent products during the recent era of inflation.

Methods: Using Keppa, an online historic price tracker, we queried the top-selling incontinence products from categories “Protection Pads & Guards” and “Protective Briefs & Underwear” until we obtained 20 products in each of the five categories of incontinence products. To estimate long-term price trends, we analyzed data from November 2020-2022. Products missing data from this date range were excluded. To evaluate the recent economic climate, we analyzed the mean monthly price differences over a six-month period. Additionally, we noted the month where price points were the highest for each product.

Results: There were 65 products that met inclusion criteria for analysis of long-term price trends, and short-term average pricing was assessed among the original 100 products. As seen in Table 1, the categories with the greatest increase in prices over the two-year period included pads (N=12, $12.05) and guards (N=19, $7.59). Over the last six months, product prices increased in every category, but increased the most among pads and guards by $4.20 and $3.10. As shown in Figure 1, absorbent products have seen a positive linear increase in the frequencies of their highest recorded prices since June 2022.

Conclusions: During this recent era of inflation, there was a steady increase in the price of absorbent products. These findings highlight how patients with urinary incontinence and financial hardship may be enduring a high burden of costs to maintain their quality of life.