A Clinical Test of Women’s Self-Diagnosis of Genitourinary Infections

Abstract

Vaginitis and cystitis result in 8 million ambulatory health care visits annually. For military women deployed to austere environments, gynecological problems are more likely to occur yet unlikely to be adequately diagnosed and managed. The Institute of Medicine has recommended that self-care kits be made available to military women under these circumstances. In this clinical comparative study, women’s (N = 86) self-diagnoses of vaginitis and cystitis using an investigatordesigned, self-diagnostic decision-making guide and kit were compared with clinical diagnoses by advanced practice nurses (APN). The vaginitis guide had a sensitivity of 84% for candida vaginitis (CV) and 91.3% for bacterial vaginosis (BV) and a specificity of 81.5% for CV and 82.8% for BV. The women consistently agreed with the APN’s diagnosis of presence or absence of cystitis. These findings suggest that women are capable of making reliable selfdiagnostic decisions given appropriate cues. Continued development of a self-diagnosis and treatment kit for military women deployed to austere environments is warranted.