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Views and behaviour of primary care practitioners in a study of provision of emergency contraception
- K Malia, Pippa Oakeshot oakeshot@sghms.ac.uk (16 November 2005)
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K Malia, MBBS 3rd Year Medical Student St George's University of London, Pippa Oakeshot oakeshot@sghms.ac.uk
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Fairhurst and colleagues looked at a Scottish GPs’ engagement with sexual health promotion and found that GPs needed more education to help address their values, attitudes and cultural competences.(1) Our more recent pilot study suggests English GPs also need more education about the new UK National Guidelines to postpone the age of the first smear test to 25 years.(2) In December 2004 we decided to do a questionnaire survey to find out the percentage of women students aged <25 who have regular smear tests and/or been tested for sexually transmitted infections, and the reasons why some women choose not to. Following ethical approval female medical students attending a lecture at St George’s Hospital Medical School were asked to complete a confidential questionnaire on sexual health. All 70 female students agreed. Mean age was 20 years (18-24). Of 69 responders 42% described their ethnicity as white, 29% Indian Sub-Continent, 13% Chinese/SE Asian, 7% Black African and 9% other ethnic groups. The results showed 48% of participants to be virgins and 32% of participants to have had a smear test. A third of students aged <25 had been informed by their GP that they needed a smear test despite the recent change in guidelines. The two most common sources of knowledge about smear tests were GP’s (33%) and school sex/health education (23%). The main reasons for not having had a smear test were that the participant had never had sexual intercourse (28%) or they did not know they were supposed to yet (19%). 64% of participants plan to have a smear test at some point in the future. White women were more likely to say they would have a smear test in the future than women of other ethnic groups (48% 21/44 white women compared to 20% 4/20 women from other ethnic groups p<0.05). Much fewer participants had been tested for a sexually transmitted infection (22%). The main reasons for not getting screened for an STI were that the participant had never had sexual intercourse (28%), embarrassment (15%) and because the participant would want to know what the screening involved first (9%). The study is limited by the small size and that all participants were medical students. However, we would expect this group to be more knowledgeable about smear tests and STI’s. Since our study suggests some GPs and women are still unaware that women aged <25 no longer need routine cervical smears, we agree with Fairhurst and Colleagues that GPs need further education on sexual health matters. References (1) www.fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/22/3/280 (2) http://www.cancerscreening.nhs.uk/cervical/ Conflict of Interest:None declared |
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