Awareness about reproductive tract infection and treatment seeking behavior among married women of age 15–44 years in a rural area of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India

Dr. Diipti Singh

Volume : IX, Issue : IV, April - 2019

Awareness about reproductive tract infection and treatment seeking behavior among married women of age 15–44 years in a rural area of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India

Dr. Diipti Singh

Abstract :

Objective: The present study was designed to evaluate the awareness about reproductive tract infection (RTI) among the married women of age 15–44 years in a rural area of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. Methods: This was a cross–sectional study design conducted among married women of reproductive age group (15–44) in the rural area. 296 married women were included in the study. The simple random sampling was used for the selection of study subjects. Results: Nearly half (48%) of the women were aware about at least one of the symptom of RTI. However, 28.7% were aware ≥2 symptoms of RTI. Most (66.2%) of the women perceived that they were aware about RTI through their relatives/friends and 48.6% of the women did conversation with the partner regarding RTI. The prevalence of RTI was 35% (RR=0.65, 95%CI=0.82–1.36, p=0.69) lower among the women who were aware about RTI than those who did not aware. There was increasing trend in the level of awareness with increase in age. The awareness was also significantly (p=0.0001) higher among higher SES level. The educated women and husband had significantly (p<0.01) higher awareness than illiterate women. The problem of RTI was faced by 66.9% and 75.8% of them sought treatment. Only 12.7% received treatment from government hospitals. Conclusion: As in this study, the care seeking at health facility is lower, there is a need to enhance the health facilities to make aware to the population about the quality of health facilities run by the government in this area