Clinical Medicine Insights: Women's Health

Objective: To assess the overall health status, lifestyle behavior, and attitude towards menopause, hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) and human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination among female Saudi doctors.

Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted over a period of 2 months (November and December 2011). The study population was comprised of Saudi female physicians that are actively working. Ethics approval was obtained prior to conducting the study. A structured self-administered questionnaire was answered by the subjects. Inclusion criteria were any female physician who was willing to participate and was actively practicing at time of the study.

Results: One hundred responses were received. Forty-six subjects were ,30 years and 31 subjects were .40 years of age. Obesity was defined as a body mass index (BMI) of .25 and morbid obesity as a BMI .30. Eight subjects had a normal BMI, 27 subjects were overweight, and 16 were morbidly obese. Six subjects were smokers and 13 had chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Only five of the subjects performed regular breast self-examination, and 40 subjects have a breast examination done by a physician. Pap smear was done at least once on only 17% of the subjects. Forty-eight subjects were willing to prescribe HRT to their patients. Sixty-five subjects were willing to administer the HPV vaccination to patients.

Conclusion: The overall health status, lifestyle, and attitude of Saudi female physicians towards their own health is suboptimal. This study shows that even physicians need to improve their lifestyle behavior and attitude towards their own health.