Increasing the incidence of routine pelvic examinations: behavioral medicine's contribution

Routine gynecological care is important for the maintenance of good health and integral to early detection and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and cancer. Research indicates that both patients and clinicians find this examination anxiety provoking and, therefore, may fail to comply with optimal guidelines for routine care. Training techniques, effective for attenuating providers' and patients' anxiety, are reviewed. These include medical school programs for providers and seminars on women's health designed for lay people. In addition to providing training when there are fewer immediate stressors, methods for reducing anxiety may be employed proximate to exams. Providing informative, behavioral, and cognitive-behavioral techniques, emphasizing greater patient control, may be useful in decreasing anxiety associated with pelvic examinations. These latter techniques may be incorporated into providers' protocol for routine pelvic examinations and thereby may serve to enhance compliance for routine gynecological care.