Endometriosis and women’s social lives, work and education.

Endometriosis has a negative impact on social lives, work and education.

Key Points

Highlights:

• Different aspects of women’s lives are affected negatively, including marital/sexual relationships, social, physical, and psychological health due to endometriosis.

Importance:  

• Endometriosis patients' counseling is essential because of the negative effects of the disease on their lives.

What’s done here? 

• Symptomatic women with surgically confirmed endometriosis, aged over 18 years, were recruited for this prospective study.
• A questionnaire with 7 open questions: ‘How has your experience with endometriosis impacted on:
  • "your overall life /family relationships / friendships / attendance at social events / engagement in leisure activities / work / education".
• Demographical and clinical characteristics (age, symptom onset, surgical diagnosis, marital status, sexuality, children, employment, and education) were also recorded.

Key results:

• Among 200 women who met the eligibility criteria and completed surveys (X=27.1±6.7 years), three fourth had symptom onset before the age of 18.
• More than one-third had > 9 years of diagnostic delay, half were single, 80% had no children.
• One-third were university graduates, 37% had full-time employment status.
• 19% reported social implications of endometriosis on their lives.
• The most prominent issue was the lack of understanding and support from friends and family.
• Leisure activities were negatively affected in >85%, and of those, 68% of women reported not to attend social events.
• Forty percent reported the exhaustion of sick leave and unpaid leave.

Strengths and Limitations

• A relatively homogenous study population, and not being able to generalize to the society, may be accepted as the limitations.
• However, this study is important regarding the needs of women with endometriosis.

Lay Summary

The women with endometriosis present with a broad clinical spectrum including pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and infertility. All of these symptoms and signs may have a negative impact on women’s lives by having endometriosis.

Mastrangelo and Turnbull, from Australia, published a retrospective study titled “The impact of surgically diagnosed symptomatic endometriosis on women’s social lives, work and education: An inductive classical content analysis” in the journal named "The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology".

The authors aimed to assess how endometriosis would affect the life of the patients. Australian women with surgically confirmed endometriosis were evaluated with a survey including 7 open questions about their experience with endometriosis impacting their overall life, family-friendships relations, attendance at social events, engagement in leisure activities, work, and education.

A total of 200 participants was enrolled and 19% of the respondents reported social implications of endometriosis on their lives. The most prominent issue was found to be a lack of understanding and support from friends and family. Leisure activities were negatively affected due to physical symptoms in 86% of the patients and of those, 68% of women reported not attending social events. More than forty percent of women reported the exhaustion of sick leave and unpaid leave.

“This study highlights the impact of endometriosis on the social and economic lives of Australian women.” the authors concluded.   

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34677826/