Knowledge among German and Turkish women about specifically female bodily functions, contraception, preventative medical examinations and menopause

The legally binding consent of a patient to surgical operations of certain diagnostic measures during hospitalisation is actually guaranteed only in c ases where the medical information is oriented to the individual level of u nderstanding of the patient. The real extent of actual knowledge about heal th relevant aspects is not always known. Immigrant women constitute a large portion of the patients in big German cities. In most clinics the difficul ties in communication caused by persistent language barriers are not presen tly being solved in a satisfactory manner. In light of this situation, it s eemed necessary to ascertain the knowledge of German and Turkish women with respect to specifically female bodily functions, contraception, preventati ve medical examinations and menopause. The study included a total of 320 Ge rman and 262 Turkish patients of both gynaecological units at the Virchow W omen's Clinic in Berlin during the 1 1/2 -year inquiry period (1997/98). Th e questionnaire we used was laid out in multiple choice format, whereby eac h question weas provided with a list of possible answers (level of signific ance p<0.05). Only a small portion of the general female populace (approxim ately 13% of the study population, 22% of German patients) is well-to-very- well informed about 'specific female bodily functions, anatomy, preventativ e health care and contraception', and this proportion is even smaller among Turkish female patients (3% of Turkish women surveyed). While the understa nding demonstrated by immigrants who possessed strong writing skills in Ger man is nearly as great as that of the German group, the proportion of patie nts who demonstrated less sophisticated understanding was still twice as hi gh with 32.5% as compared to that of the German group (15%). According to t he opinion of approximately one-third of the Turkish immigrants (German wom en 8.2%) surveyed, there are no (increased) health risks associated with me nopause.