An assessment of Polish women’s level of knowledge about endometriosis: a pilot study

Abstract

Introduction Insufficient knowledge about endometriosis among women is one of the causes of its delayed diagnoses. Due to the elusiveness of symptoms, the most important component of early detection is proper and exhaustive knowledge. The objective of the study was to assess Polish women's awareness of endometriosis. Methods The pilot studies were performed with the participation of 200 women, in an average age of 33.65 years (SD = 11.45), who completed the authors’ questionnaire related to self-assessment of the level of knowledge about the disease, its symptoms, late effects and directions of a remediation procedure. The statistical analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 suite. It included a frequency analysis, a one-way analysis of variance ANOVA, a single variable regression analysis and Student’s t-test for independent samples. Results Almost 84% of women had heard about endometriosis, while only 1/3 of them considered their knowledge sufficient or good. Very good knowledge was declared by 4.5% of women, while 16.1% of participants had never heard about it. The level of knowledge was significantly higher (p = 0.001) among women with medical education. Polish women acquired their knowledge mainly from the Internet and the experience of other women. The reasons identified by women were the still existing ‘taboo’ related to menstruation, the absence of information in the media and education in schools, which is critical according to 92.4% of women. Conclusions Polish women’s level of knowledge about endometriosis is insufficient, which we should strive to improve. Higher awareness is presented by women with medical education, and the higher the level of knowledge, the larger a woman’s interest in healthy behaviour.

Awareness and Knowledge of Libyan Women about Endometriosis

“…3, The Correlations between Knowledge and Education Levels, the p-value > 0.05 means there is no relationship between education level and knowledge of endometriosis, This study agree with many previous study as (Kotowska et al, 2021), (Adewunmi & Sasah, 2022. ), (Arab et al, 2022), (Henry et al, 2022), (Kotowska et al, 2021), (Le Busque & Mellish, 2023), (S. L. Mohamed El Sayed et al, 2022), (Ramani Devi et al, 2021, (Roullier et al, 2021), (Szymańska & Dąbrowska-Galas, 2021), (Wróbel et al, 2022), (Khan et al, 2022), (Sodeinde & Konu, 2022), (Randhawa et al, 2021), (Henry et al, 2022), (Navarria-Forney et al, 2020), (Mohamed & Hassan, 2020. ), (Mecha et al, 2022), (Eldardery et al, 2022), (Abd Elrahim et al, 2022), (Adewunmi & Sasah, 2022.…”

“…Due to the elusiveness of symptoms, the most important component of early detection is proper and exhaustive knowledge. (Szymańska & Dąbrowska-Galas, 2021). Awareness of the possibility of developing the disease in a particular patient, combined with appropriate use of ultrasound examination, can contribute to the decrease in diagnostic delay.…”

Endometriosis and the Temporomandibular Joint—Preliminary Observations

“…However, the level of knowledge about endometriosis among women is insufficient, which may have an impact on the failure to see a specialist and thus delay the diagnosis of the disease and the initiation of treatment [44]. Although endometriosis may affect as many as 176 million women around the world, we still know little about the disease, and its causes are still being sought [45].…”

Addressing the Endometriosis Knowledge Gap for Improved Clinical Care—A Cross-Sectional Pre- and Post-Educational-Intervention Study among Pakistani Women

“…Other studies have explored the knowledge of endometriosis in different populations. A study conducted by Szymańska et al in Poland found that 84% ( n = 200) of women had heard of endometriosis, whereas only 4.5% of them had very good knowledge [ 31 ]. Another study reported by Zanden et al in the Netherlands found that general practitioners (GPs) were not able to increasingly recognize endometriosis among patients, which lead to diagnostic delays [ 32 ].…”