Genital Hygiene Behaviors Among Married Women and the Outcomes of Counseling Practices

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the genital hygiene behaviors of married women and the counseling provided based on the genital infection data that was obtained. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 146 women of age 18-49 years. The study was conducted in a training and research hospital located in Ankara. Data were collected using a data collection form including questions about socio-demographic characteristics, descriptive characteristics of participants regarding genital hygiene of women (bathing, pad use, vaginal douching) and the Genital Hygiene Behaviors Inventory (GHBI). The GHBI scores were analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U test (age, bathing, cleaning of genital region, using deodorant for genital region, vaginal douche, genital infection history) and the Kruskal-Wallis test (education status, department where employed, type of underwear, frequency of sexual intercourse). Results: The mean age of the women was 39.0 ± 7.70 years. It was determined that 57.5% of women had a vaginal douching and only 33.6% of women applied to the doctor for complaints of genital infection. The women’ mean score on the GHBI was 84.95 ± 9.20. Women at the group of 41 years old and older, who were not having bath every day and who were not performing the genital region cleaning properly were found to have lower GHBI scores (p <0.05). Participants older than 41 years, who tended not to have frequent baths and did not clean the genital region properly, had lower mean GHBI scores (p <0.05). Conclusions: Despite the high mean Genital Hygiene Behaviors Inventory score, genital hygiene behaviors of women were not at a desired level in our study.

Keywords

• Genital
• hygiene
• women
• infection
• nursing.

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