Prevalence of cervical-vaginal infections in the pap-smear samples in Iran

Cervical-vaginal infection is one of the most common problems in clinical medicine .We aimed to determine the prevalence of cervical-vaginal infections in pap-smear samples from women in urban and rural areas.

It was a cross - sectional study which had done on 1448 non-pregnant women those had attended 12 health centers in the Dashte- Azadegan city during 2007-2011, Iran. After explained the aim of study, all subjects had signed informed consent, questionnaires regarding demographic and reproductive characteristics, and contraceptive methods used were completed by researcher. Also, pap-smear samples were prepared by a trained obstetrician and sent it to the pathology laboratory. All data were analyzed using SPSS (version 19). Descriptive and analytical statistics (chi - square test) were also applied.

The result showed that 55.9% and 44.1% of subjects were respectively in urban and rural areas. The mean age of women was 28±8.075. Pap smear results had shown that 8.8% of samples were infected with one of microorganisms such as Chlamydia, Candida, Cardnerella, and Trichomonas. A significant association was seen between contraceptive methods, education levels and place of residence with cervical-vaginal infections.

The most prevalent pathogens by descending order were: Candida, Trichomonas and Gardenerella. The prevalence of cervical-vaginal infections was consistent with the results of many studies but it was different with the results of some studies. This could be due to the special conditions of social, economic and cultural of each area.