Vol. 5, Issue 1, Part C (2019)

Background: Vaginal discharge is one of the most common complaints of women, and inability to understand and talk about it can be all attributed to the social stigma related to reproductive health. Here we tried to understand the perception of women related to vaginal discharge.

Objective: To explore the views of patients regarding vaginal discharge and its associated implications.

Material and Methods: A cross sectional study was done among women attending the gynaecological OPD at SMS, Hospital, Jaipur, over a period of 12 months. Women in the age group 20-45 yrs were interviewed regarding vaginal discharge and a pretested questionnaire was used to explore their views and further clinical work up was done. The results were compiled.

Results: The mean age of the participants was 31.8 yrs+_10. Many women who had physiological vaginal discharge consulted the doctors, attributed their other unrelated symptoms like weakness, bloating and headache to the vaginal discharge. On the other hand, women who had infective vaginal discharge were unaware of it.

Conclusion: Women still have a lot of myths regarding vaginal discharge. All this leads to the over diagnosis and overtreatment of such patients. Regarding other symptoms as an eventual result of vaginal discharge also delays the early diagnosis of various other ailments.