Awareness about sexually transmitted and other infections of the reproductive tract, risk factors and other predictors in women

Abstract

Background: Genital tract infection is one of the major causes of morbidity and complications in both women and men. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the level of awareness about risk factors and other predictors of sexually transmitted and other infections of the genital tract. Patients and Methods: This analytic cross-sectional study was carried on 584 women aged 15-49, who had referred to health care centers of Tabriz, Iran during 2013. Multi-stage cluster sampling was performed and the data-collecting tool was a questionnaire, for which validity and reliability were determined. Descriptive and inferential statistics (independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and univariate and multivariate analysis) were used to analyze the data using the SPSS 17 software. Results: The mean ± SD score of awareness about non-sexual infections was 9.69 ± 3.2 with a range of 0 to 15. The mean ± SD score of awareness on sexually transmitted infections was 17.08 ± 7.42 with a range of 0 to 37. Multivariate analysis adjusting for potential confounding factors showed a statistically significant relationship between awareness score of non-sexual infections and variables of "sex only with husband", "anal, oral, anal-oral sex" and "marriage more than once". There was also a significant relationship between awareness of sexually transmitted infections with "anal, oral, anal-oral sex", "marriage more than once" and "history of blood transfusion in husband". Thus, the awareness score of the following women was higher than others (P < 0.05), those whose sex was not limited to their husband, had sex in unusual ways, reported a history of husband’s blood transfusion, married only once. Conclusions: The results of this study revealed that knowledge and understanding of subjects about sexual diseases is undesirable. So to increase awareness, women and girls must be sensitized to the importance of this issue.