Abused women and risk for pelvic inflammatory disease

Mexican and African American women with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) underwent targeted physical exams and questioning regarding sexual or physical abuse, current genitourinary symptomatology, and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) risk behaviors to determine the relationship of sexual or physical abuse to the pathology of genitourinary symptoms affecting diagnoses of STDs and risk for PID. Bivariate comparisons found abused women reported more PID risk behaviors including earlier coitus, more sex partners, higher STD recurrence, and delayed health-seeking behavior. Multivariate comparisons found abused women were more likely to report pathologic genitourinary symptomatology than nonabused women. Clinicians made more presumptive diagnoses of PID for abused than for nonabused women upon physical examination. These findings indicate abused women are at high risk for PID. Its considerable impact on genitourinary symptomatology and risk for PID make assessment for abuse essential in clinical management of women with STDs and diagnosis of PID.