Study shows Young Women Can be Too Self-Conscious to Seek Medical Help

A recent British study from Ovarian Cancer Action shows that women may be too embarrassed to seek gynecological help. More than half of these women turned to Google for medical answers.

Here’s an excerpt from the article by Ovarian Cancer Action:

The study shows that young British women (aged 18-24) are four times less likely to go to a doctor with a sexual health issue than their 55-64 year old counterparts.

Among the top reasons for young women avoiding going to the doctor were being scared of being intimately examined (48%), being embarrassed to talk about sexual health issues (44%) and not knowing what words to use (26%) – with two thirds (66%) saying they’d be embarrassed to say the word ‘vagina’. The embarrassment factor drops considerably as we get older, with just one in 10 (11%) women aged 65 or over saying they’d be shy saying ‘vagina’ to a healthcare professional.

Other words to cause considerable embarrassment among the young - but not so much among older women – include ‘orgasm’ (64% and 21% respectively), ‘labia’ (60% and 14% respectively),  and ‘discharge’ (56% and 5% respectively).

Instead of seeking medical help, more than half of younger women (57%) say they would turn to google, with an additional one in five (17%) preferring to confide in their mums. Just 17% of the younger age group say they would initially seek medical help if they suspected a gynaecological or sexual health problem, compared with 68% of the older age group, who would turn to a doctor straight away.

One in six have made appointments only to cancel them because they were too embarrassed to discuss gynaecological issues. A further one in five (18%) have completely ignored a sexual health issue.

Katherine Taylor, Acting Chief Executive at Ovarian Cancer Action, said: “The reluctance to see a doctor for gynaecological issues is really worrying and, while many of us have turned to the internet for help, googling symptoms is not a substitute for proper medical attention. Illnesses such as ovarian cancer - which kills a woman every two hours in the UK – is much easier to treat if it’s diagnosed early, so it’s incredibly important that women feel empowered to talk about their health and feel comfortable visiting healthcare professionals.

For the full article from Ovarian Cancer Action, follow this link: http://ovarian.org.uk/news-and-campaigning/article/young-women-too-self-conscious-to-seek-medical-help