Gynecologic Care for Women With Physical Disabilities: A Qualitative Study of Patients and Providers.

BACKGROUND: Women with physical disabilities have unmet gynecologic care needs, including disparities in cancer screening and contraceptive care, when compared with women without physical disabilities. Our objective was to qualitatively assess provider and patient perspectives regarding barriers to gynecologic health care for women with physical disabilities. METHODS: We used purposive sampling to recruit women with physical disabilities and gynecology providers who had experience caring for this population at two university hospitals. Patient and provider participants completed in-depth, semistructured interviews investigating their experiences with and barriers to receiving or providing gynecologic care. Transcripts were systematically analyzed by reviewing assigned codes and performing thematic analysis. We planned a sample size of at least 20 patient and provider participants to allow for saturation of thematic content. RESULTS: We interviewed 29 women with physical disabilities and 20 providers. Important themes for providers and patients centered around adequate time spent during appointments, challenges with the gynecologic examination, inadequate facilities, clinical space limitations, and lack of formal provider and staff training in caring for this population. CONCLUSIONS: Providers were motivated to provide quality care for women with disabilities, but encountered systems and training barriers. Patients and providers had concordant impressions of barriers that influenced equitable and patient-centered care, with structural barriers, including a lack of accessible space, closely related to perceptions of health care inequity between women with and without physical disabilities.

A gap in patient tape storage and use practices puts patients at risk for cutaneous fungal infections.

We report a case of a cutaneous fungal infection in a 12-year-old oncology patient related to patient tape. Our facility had no established guidelines for patient tape. A survey conducted of multiple local healthcare facilities revealed no existing policies or standards of care related to tape storage or use. This reveals a gap in practice. We call for formal recommendations for tape storage and use to enhance patient safety.

Administration of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate on the day of mifepristone for medical abortion: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to evaluate satisfaction with timing of administration and continuation rates of depot medroxyprogesterone (DMPA) when given on the initial visit for first-trimester medical abortion. STUDY DESIGN: In this pilot study, we administered DMPA within 15 min of mifepristone administration. Participants were followed up in the clinic 7 days after enrollment and were contacted at 14 days, 28 days and 3, 6, 9 and 12 months by telephone. We assessed satisfaction with contraception timing, DMPA continuation, bleeding patterns and abortion completion. RESULTS: Twenty women were enrolled. At 7-day follow-up, 18 of 19 contacted participants (94.7%) were satisfied with timing of DMPA administration. Ten of 19 participants (52.6%) discontinued DMPA after the first injection. At 1 year, 3 participants out of 19 were continuing DMPA (15.7%). The median number of bleeding days after abortion was 19. Three participants had medical abortion failure. In the first year after abortion, there were four known repeat pregnancies. CONCLUSIONS: The timing of initiation of DMPA on the initial visit for medical abortion is satisfactory to women, but its influence on medical abortion efficacy requires further study. Continuation rates for DMPA were low in our sample. IMPLICATIONS: This pilot study provides groundwork for future larger studies to assess initiation of the injectable contraceptive DMPA on the day of mifepristone for medical abortion, but low continuation rates of DMPA in our sample emphasize the importance of access to intrauterine devices and implants after abortion.