Half of the participants in the “Health and women” survey, directed by the professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Alicante, María Teresa Ruiz Cantero, affirm that they usually wait until they have serious symptoms to go to the doctor, despite the negative consequences that this can have for your health.
For 68% of the respondents, the perception of their own health status in the last year is good or very good and only bad or very bad for 6%. This data is independent of having or not having a disease, since 57% of the women surveyed claim not to have a health problem; 35% say they have a diagnosis for their health problem and the remaining 8% say they are waiting for a definitive diagnosis.
Regarding the habits of using health centers, Ruiz Cantero explained that 76% of all the women surveyed affirm that they go alone to receive health care, a figure that is even higher among women between 36 and 50 years old, a range in which reaches 82% and among those from 51 to 65 it rises to 83%. Even 69% of women aged 66 to 75 still seek medical care alone.
The frequency with which they go to the doctor is once a year for 58% of women and 33% go when they need it. In addition, almost half of the women surveyed undergo medical check-ups and examinations, that is, they take secondary prevention measures.
Regarding the type of health center they go to, more than 80% of the women surveyed go to a primary care center for a health problem. Of all the participants in the survey, 32% say they have private insurance, however, 66% of this group of women say they go, exclusively or in combination, to the public sphere.
The survey indicates that “the main areas in which the women surveyed say they have a disease or health problem are allergies, mental health, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and hypercholesterolemia, neurological diseases and those related to the female reproductive system”. Eating disorders and gastrointestinal diseases are also mentioned.
In relation to these diseases, the researcher from the University of Alicante has highlighted that the time it took to seek assistance for the first symptoms was more than a year in between 20 and 30% of the cases.
The professor has offered data related to the diseases that have the greatest impact on women’s quality of life, according to the survey responses. Thus, depression is the health problem with the greatest impact on the quality of life of those surveyed, with an 8.2 out of 10. It is followed by the impact of migraine, with a 7.5 out of 10; allergies, with a 6.46 out of 10; and the set of diseases of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and hypercholesterolemia, whose impact on quality of life, according to what they reported, is 5.93 out of 10.
And as for the women who in the survey reported having health problems related to menopause, their quality of life is affected by 7.47 out of 10. 52% of the total claim to have menstruation and report symptoms such as fatigue, mood swings, heavy bleeding and painful periods. 36% usually take pain medication, although only 17% go to the doctor due to menstrual pain.
Finally, the UA professor recalled that both the Gendered Innovations project at Stanford University and the First Women’s Health Strategy of the United Kingdom identify gender challenges in health care for women in order to contribute to your best health.
In this sense, the women surveyed also assessed some questions that scientific literature usually asks about, and that can explain women’s behaviors when faced with diseases, the doctor-patient relationship and the assessment of satisfaction with it.
Thus, 67.7% of those surveyed think that women and men react differently to the same symptoms or illness. 49.7% of the women surveyed stated that they usually wait until they have serious symptoms to go to the doctor. 56.9% of the women surveyed think that, when faced with the same disease/health problem, they are not listened to and the same effort is not made for diagnosis and treatment as men.
According to the professor, “the perspective of the social determinants of health considered in this Women’s Health Survey provides new knowledge about the sociocultural, family, economic and gender dimensions; as well as the dimension related to how the health structure understands and addresses the needs of women. This information can be useful for approaching strategies with a focus on the comprehensive health of women and, therefore, the health of the society to which they contribute so much.”
