ABSTRACT

Aim: The aim of this project; To develop a mobile application for vulvar-self examination (VSE) and to examine the rate of women performing VSE in line with the developed mobile application.

Methods: The research is time series model. The universe of the research was composed of women who admitted to Aydın Adnan Menderes University Hospital Gynecology and Obstetrics Polyclinic between 15 February and 15 March 2020, 15 May- 15 September 2021. The sample calculation was not made in the study, 47 women among the women who admitted to the outpatient clinic on the specified dates were included in the sample. The VSE mobile application was installed on the mobile phones of the women participating in the study. The data were collected using a questionnaire prepared according to the literature, using face-to-face and telephone interviews. Descriptive statistics and McNemar Test have been used to evaluate data.

Results: It has been observed that the average age of the participants was 35.34±9.85, 51,1% of them were high school graduates, and 38,3% of them were working. It has been determined 17% of the women in the study have performed BSE, not all of them have performed VSE, 95,7% of didn’t have annual regular gynecological examinations and 29% didn’t have pap-smear. It was determined that 91,5% of the participants did not have any information about VSE. After the VSE mobile application was installed on mobile phones 68,1% of them performed VSE three months and 57,4% of them after six months. It was determined that the loss between two follow-ups was not statistically significant (p>0.05). It was stated the most because of first follow-up difficult to perform VSE and second follow-up of they cannot spare time for examination don’t perform VSE.

Conclusion: In this study, it was determined that the developed mobile application increased the rate of performing VSE and there was no significant difference in the number of those who did not do VSE between the follow-ups. It can be said that the mobile application is effective on the frequency and duration of VSE.

Keywords: woman helath, vulvar-self examination, mobile application, vulvar health