Trends in attendances to genitourinary medicine services by older women

We sought to analyse reasons for attendance of older women (defined as aged 46 years and over) to genitourinary (GU) medicine services at two UK clinics. We used KC60 coding data to count new episode attendances by year from 1998 to 2008 and to further dissect reason for attendance in 2827 new episodes during 2003-2008. The total number of new episodes of attendance in older women increased from 167 in 1998 to 701 in 2008. Within this overall increase, there was a stable proportion of acute sexually transmitted infections (STIs) over time, alongside significant increases in the proportion of women requesting STI screening and HIV testing and those attending GU medicine for other reasons, such as dermatological or gynaecological complaints. In our clinic population it was encouraging to see that older women increasingly use GU medicine services for STI screening and HIV testing. Services may need to adapt to older women's specific health-care needs.