Discomfort during vaginal examination, history of abuse and posttraumatic stress disorders in women

The aim of this study was to assess abuse, sexual abuse and posttraumatic stress disorders associated with experiencing discomfort during the vaginal examination. This descriptive study was carried with 320 women who are hospitalized in Aydın Women Birth and Child Desorders Hospital between July 2014 and August 2015. The data was obtained through Information Form about Women and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder checklist- Civilian Version. Descriptive statistics, t-test, variance, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, and Chi-square analysis were employed while assessing the data. The average age of the women in the study was 26.32±5.98. It was found out that 76.3% of the women are primary school graduates, that 88.1% were housewives and that 87.5% had medical insurance. The average experiencing discomfort score during the vaginal examination of the women is 3.92±3.34. Also twenty six percent of the women reported strong discomfort during the vaginal examination. It was established that the average Posttraumatic Stress Disorder score of women is 27.82±9.66 and sixty four percent of the women reported Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. It was established that experienced of physical, emotional and sexual abuse in women increases to occurrence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. It was found out that 11.9% of women experienced emotional abuse, that 7.8% experienced physical abuse. Also 7.8% of women reported that were forced sexual intercourse by their partners. Fourty percent of that women described forcing sexual intercourse by partners as a abuse. A greater proportion of women who reported strong discomfort during the vaginal examination (75.0%) reported Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as compared with non-roperted strong discomfort group (61.0%). Abuse history was not associated with a discomfort during the vajinal examination. The study revealed that experiencing discomfort during the vaginal examination of the women more likely roperted Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, there was not an association between strong discomfort during the vajinal examination and a lifetime history of abuse and having a sexual and lifetime abuse history increased the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder rate. Integrating of this results into care during vaginal examination migth make a positive differance for vaginal examination experiance in women and reduce trauma of women. Keywords: Abuse, discomfort, midwifery care, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual abuse, vaginal examination.