New Survey of Women of Reproductive Age:

Women And Their Doctors Can Do More To Safeguard Women's Reproductive Health

For immediate release: February 10, 1997

Contact: Tina Hoff

A new survey of women of reproductive age finds that they are taking some important steps to protect their reproductive health, but in some critical areas they -- and their doctors -- could do more. Among areas that need attention:

• Making sure that women know if STD screening is part of their routine care,
• Discussing their contraceptive options with their health care providers,
• Knowing some key facts that can help women avoid unplanned pregnancies and protect their future fertility, and
• Discussing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) with their sexual partners.

These highlights are taken from a new survey of 1,001 women of reproductive age (ages 18-44) conducted for the Kaiser Family Foundation and Glamour magazine by Princeton Survey Research Associates. The survey -- an in-depth, comprehensive look at women's knowledge, attitudes and practices on a wide range of reproductive health issues -- is being reported on in the February issue of Glamour magazine.

• Women also need to make sure they know whether they are being tested for STDs as part of their routine gynecological care. Many women (42%) assume that they are being screened for STDs when they go for an annual gynecological check-up -- an assumption that may not always hold true. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, STD tests are not automatically included in routine gynecological exams; they are left to the provider's discretion unless specifically requested by the patient.
  
  
• Some women may need to take more initiative in raising the subject of birth control with their doctor. Nearly a third -- 30 percent -- of women at risk for an unplanned pregnancy (those who are currently sexually active, able to conceive, and not pregnant or trying to be) report that neither they nor their doctors mentioned birth control during their most recent visit. Women who reported discussing birth control at their most recent gynecological visit were almost twice as likely to say they use birth control "all of the time."
  
  
• While women are well-versed in many aspects of their reproductive health, many lack basic information which could help them avoid unplanned pregnancies as well as protect their future fertility. For example, many women (63%) are unaware of the availability of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) as a means of preventing pregnancy after sexual intercourse. While the majority of women know that a woman's ability to get pregnant is affected by whether she has had an STD (71%), significantly fewer are aware that smoking (41%) also affects fertility and that having had an abortion (34%) and long-term use of birth control pills (23%) have not been found to have a negative affect on fertility.
  
  
• Women probably need to make STDs other than HIV a topic of conversation with their sexual partners more often. While two out of three sexually active single women (63%) say they discussed their risk for HIV with their current or most recent sexual partner, only 46 percent of single women say they discussed STDs other than HIV, despite the fact that STDs like chlamydia and gonorrhea have a high prevalence in the U.S. (4 million cases of chlamydia and 800,000 cases of gonorrhea among men and women in 1995).

"Whether the topic is birth control, emergency contraception, or sexually transmitted disease, reproductive health issues need to part of every sexually active woman's concerns," said Felicia H. Stewart, M.D., Director of Reproductive Health Programs, Kaiser Family Foundation.

Overall, most women report being satisfied with the gynecological care they receive. Describing their most recent visit, almost all women say they were treated with respect (98%), felt comfortable asking a question about anything that was on their mind (95%), spent enough time with their gynecological provider (94%), and got all the information they needed at the visit (94%). Women who had recently experienced reproductive health problems and those seeing a provider other than a gynecologist were slightly less likely to report satisfaction with their care, although majorities of both had no complaints about the care they received at their most recent gynecological visit.

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Methodology

The Survey of Women about Their Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Their Reproductive Health was conducted for Glamour magazine and the Foundation by Princeton Survey Research Associates. The results are based on telephone interviews conducted between July 10 through July 28, 1996 with a nationally representative sample of 1,001 women ages 18-44. All interviews were conducted by female interviewers. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus four percentage points at the 95 percent level of confidence.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, is a non-profit, independent national health care philanthropy and is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries. The Foundation's work is focused on four main areas: health policy, reproductive health, HIV, and health and development in South Africa.

Copies of the report on this survey, the survey questionnaire, and national top line data for the findings reported in this release (#1205) are available by calling the Kaiser Family Foundation's publication request line at 1-800-656-4533.

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