Researchers evaluate misconceptions surrounding urinary tract infections

In this video, Stephanie Gleicher, MD, MPH, describes the background and notable findings from the recent Urology paper “Assessment and Acquisition of Knowledge Regarding Urinary Tract infection among Adult Women in the United States.” Gleicher is a urologist with Northwell Health in Garden City, New York.

Transcription:

Please provide an overview of this study and its results.

The objective of this study was to assess baseline knowledge about urinary tract infections, interest in health resources, and platform preferences for health information acquisition and dissemination. To answer these questions, we surveyed adult females who reported a urinary tract infection in the past 12 months. Ultimately, we recruited 687 women. We found that a lot of women feel that UTIs are caused by lack of cleanliness and that most women suffer from UTIs. We also found that women do appreciate that UTIs are prevented with water as well as supplements. With regards to barriers to attaining health information, we found that a lot of women reported that medical language is just too complex. We also found that most subjects in the study do rely on their health care providers for health information and prefer office-based formats for obtaining health information. Finally, we found that over 50% of the females would like to receive health information regarding urinary tract infections. Ultimately, I think we found that there are some misconceptions about urinary tract infections. We also found that there are barriers that exist to obtaining evidence-based information. We learned a little bit about preferences for obtaining health information. But I definitely think we still have a lot of research ahead of us [to] better understand how to craft these materials and reach our target audiences.

This transcription was edited for clarity.