Journal of women's health
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Journal of women's health · Jul 2020
Development and Psychometric Validation of a Screening Questionnaire to Detect Excessive Menstrual Blood Loss That Interferes in Quality of Life: The SAMANTA Questionnaire.
Background: Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) affects up to 35% of women at some point in their lives, and has an important impact on their quality of life (QoL). Current techniques to assess and quantify menstrual blood loss are inconvenient and the correlation between actual and perceived blood loss is poor. This study aimed to develop and validate a screening questionnaire in Spanish to identify HMB in women of reproductive age. Methods: The study consisted of two phases: the conceptual development of a set of items to discriminate between women with and without HMB and the assessment of the sensitivity and specificity of these items. ⋯ For the psychometric validation phase, 389 patients were enrolled, of whom 364 were assessable: 211 cases with Pictorial Blood loss Assessment Chart-confirmed excessive menstrual loss (EML) and 153 controls. Six items met entry criteria in the model and together yielded a sensitivity of 86.7% and specificity of 89.5% to identify cases and controls. These items were weighted according to their contribution to the final model to yield a tool that can be scored from 0 to 10 being 3 the cutoff point to diagnose EML that interferes in QoL. Conclusions: The 6-item SAMANTA questionnaire represents a valid screening tool to easily identify women with EML that interfere with QoL.
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Journal of women's health · Jul 2020
Associations of Inflammation, Physical Activity, and Sleep in a Diverse Population of Women.
Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in United States with a recent rise seen in young adults, particularly women. Systemic inflammation, physical activity, and sleep are each individually linked to CVD risk. Whether there is an interaction of these variables, however, is unclear. ⋯ Stratification by race/ethnicity showed that high risk of OSA was associated with CRP ≥2 mg/L among racial/ethnic minorities but not white women (OR [95% CI]: 2.75 [1.43-5.30] vs. 0.94 [0.31-2.88]). Conclusion: High risk of OSA and elevated CRP was significantly associated in women, particularly minority women. Both play a role in CVD, highlighting potential causes for the increased risk of CVD in younger women.
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Journal of women's health · Jul 2020
ReviewPromoting Cardiovascular Health for African American Women: An Integrative Review of Interventions.
Background: African American (AA) women bear a disproportionate burden of cardiovascular disease. Promoting ideal cardiovascular health is one strategy to promote health equity for this disparate population. The goal of this integrative review was to summarize and evaluate the research evidence for cardiovascular risk reduction interventions specifically targeting, tailored, or adapted for AA women. ⋯ The most common strategies included incorporating feedback from the target population before implementation and tailoring intervention material to reflect the target population. Conclusions: There is a need to develop and evaluate tailored or adapted evidence-based interventions for AA women. Additional research is needed to design interventions for subgroups of the population such as low-income or rural AA women.
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Journal of women's health · Jul 2020
Comparative StudyRacial and Ethnic Differences in Acceptability of Urine and Cervico-Vaginal Sample Self-Collection for HPV-Based Cervical Cancer Screening.
Background: We compared women's acceptability of urine and cervico-vaginal sample self-collection for high-risk (oncogenic) human papillomavirus (hrHPV) testing and assessed whether acceptability varied across racial/ethnic groups. Methods: As part of a test accuracy study of urine-based hrHPV testing, we recruited a convenience sample of women 25-65 years of age at two colposcopy clinics in North Carolina between November 2016 and January 2019. After self-collection of urine and cervico-vaginal samples, women completed a questionnaire on the acceptability of the sample collection methods. ⋯ Most women reported at least one positive aspect of urine (89%) and cervico-vaginal self-collection (85%) for hrHPV testing with the most common positive aspect being easy sample collection, although 16% of women were concerned about performing the cervico-vaginal self-collection correctly. Conclusions: Self-collection for hrHPV-based cervical cancer screening is highly acceptable to women across different racial/ethnic groups in the United States, and most women in our study would be more likely to attend future cervical cancer screening appointments if screening were urine based. Urine-based hrHPV testing is a promising approach to improve cervical cancer screening coverage.
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Journal of women's health · Jul 2020
Factors Associated with Choice of Sterilization Among Women Veterans.
Background: We sought to compare associations of contraceptive preferences, beliefs, self-efficacy, and knowledge with use of sterilization versus other methods of contraception. Materials and Methods: This is a secondary analysis of a telephone-based survey of a nationally representative sample of women Veterans not desiring future pregnancy. Contraceptive method used at last sex was categorized as female sterilization, long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), short-acting methods, or nonprescription methods/no method. ⋯ Women Veterans were more likely to use sterilization compared to hormonal methods of contraception if they reported that lack of hormones was an extremely important contraceptive method characteristic (aRRR 3.69, 95% CI 1.94-7.03). Women Veterans who strongly agreed with the belief that birth control decisions are mainly a woman's responsibility were less likely to use sterilization compared to LARC (aRRR 0.54, 95% CI 0.29-0.98). Conclusion: Associations between contraceptive preferences, beliefs, self-efficacy, and knowledge and use of sterilization in a population of women Veterans not desiring future pregnancy are complex, and decisions may not solely be driven by desire to select a highly effective method.