Changing social-sexual patterns in gynecologic practice

One hundred randomly selected patients from the outpatient Gynecology Unit of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center were interviewed to determine current attitudes toward reproductive and sexual roles. Major areas of change apparent in the younger population were a substantial decrease in formal marriage, a reduction in the wish for children, a movement away from oral contraception back to mechanical barrier methods, and an attitudinal shift toward acceptance of a bisexual adaptation. It is important for the practicing physician to be responsive to the life-style pattern present in the new generation of women patients.