Vaginal discharge in general practice--women's perceptions, beliefs and behaviour.

OBJECTIVES: To describe women's perceptions and beliefs about their vaginal secretion and to relate these to their behaviour with respect to complaints of vaginal discharge. DESIGN: A multi-practice study including questionnaires for women and doctors and a semi-structured interview study. SETTING: North Jutland County and Aarhus County, Denmark. SUBJECTS: 283 women with and 417 women without complaints of vaginal discharge answered a questionnaire about their vaginal secretion. Ten women with vaginal discharge took part in the in-depth interviews. RESULTS: 179/274 (65%) women with and 111/417 (27%) women without complaints of vaginal discharge were bothered by their usual secretion. In 54/269 (20%) women with complaints, the pelvic examination was normal. In 59/416 (14%) women without complaints, the doctor found an abnormal vaginal secretion. Most women complaining of vaginal discharge had an external locus of control in relation to their symptoms, but an internal locus of control in relation to health in general. Fear of having a serious disease or a sexually transmitted disease was the reason for the visit to the general practitioner in 164/281 (58%). CONCLUSION: Women's perceptions and beliefs about their vaginal secretion varied and were related to their health seeking behaviour. In addition to information about possible biological causes of vaginal discharge, the general practitioner should also actively seek information about the women's perception of normality and beliefs in relation to the symptoms she experiences.

Somatization misattributed to non-pathological vaginal discharge.

Lay explanations and attributional patterns about somatization related to vaginal discharge, a folk illness characterized by undue concern about passing (normal) vaginal discharge and believing that their symptoms are caused by this, were surveyed systematically in 200 consecutive women patients with predominant somatic complaints and 138 normal healthy women. Misattribution was reported 3.5 times more often by women with somatic complaints as compared to the normal women. Sixteen women were absolutely certain that their discharge was totally responsible for their symptoms and illness. Thus, somatization related to vaginal discharge seems to be a frequent undetected problem in women with somatic symptoms.

Abnormal illness behaviour and somatisation due to leucorrhoea.

The belief that passage of a 'whitish discharge' is associated with bodily complaints of weakness, tiredness, exhaustion, multiple aches, and multiple somatic complaints is known to be widely prevalent among Asian women. However, this aspect has not gained research attention. The case reported here illustrates how multiple somatic complaints, psychosomatic in nature, are attributed to the passage of white discharge and manifest as an abnormal illness behaviour.