Reproductive Tract Infections: Prevalence and Health Seeking Behaviour among Women of Reproductive Age Group

Reproductive tract infections are having large burden on the society. An estimated 340 million new cases of RTIs emerge each year, with 151 million of them occurring in Asia. Without early diagnosis and accurate therapy, their complications severely compromise women’s health, fertility, infant health and survival. Present descriptive study was conducted to assess the prevalence of symptoms of RTIs and health seeking behaviour among women of reproductive age group (15-49 years) residing in village Abhipur, Mohali, Punjab. 60 reproductive age women were randomly selected through lottery method and interviewed with help of self structured tool. Results: The prevalence of various symptoms of RTIs among the subjects was found to be as high as 45%. Most of the subjects (45%) reported backache whereas the least reported symptom was burning micturition (1%). Most of the respondents (82%) had satisfactory health seeking behaviour. Results revealed that there was statistical significant association between income and health seeking behaviour.