Prevalence of reproductive tract infections among young married women in Tamilnadu, India

The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence of Reproductive Tract Infections among young married scheduled castes women in Thiruvarur district, TamilNadu, India. Multistage stratified random sampling technique was applied to select 605 women in the age group of 15–24 years in the five blocks of Thiruvarur district. The result shows that 14.5% of the scheduled castes women had experienced reproductive tract infections. The women reported that they suffered from ‘Itching/Irritation over vulva’ (9%) and another 4.6% of women experienced ‘Thick white discharge’ and ‘Pain in lower abdomen. The proportion of women who experienced reproductive tract infections was four times higher among illiterate (40.6%) than the women who completed higher secondary and above (10%). The result reveals that the proportion of women who experienced reproductive tract infections were less among women who had more exposure to media (8.7%) than less exposed to media (18.7%). The logistic regression analysis reveals the chance of getting RTI's symptom was less among women living in high wealth index (OR=0.168) than among women living in low wealth index. It concludes that women are living with very poor standard of health because of less educated, unemployment, inadequate health care centers. They are the victims of not only reproductive tract infections but also other diseases like communicable diseases, sexually transmitted infections etc. It is important that state government should strengthen health activities and introduce community specific intervention health programs to reduce the reproductive health problems among deprived population.