Purpose: Swiss guidelines indicate that the first gynecological visit should take place when initiating sexual activity or, at the latest, at age 21 to perform a first pap smear. However, close to 5% of young adult females in our survey report never having seen a gynecologist by age 26. The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of young adult females never having consulted a gynecologist.
Methods : Data were drawn from the Swiss national survey on youth sexual behavior carried out in 2017. Out of 5175 participants who answered all questions, 2534 (49%; mean age 26.3) were females and included in the study. They were distributed in two groups depending on whether they had ever seen a gynecologist (GYN group; 95.4%) or not (NOGYN group; 4.6%). Groups were compared on age, age at first sexual contact, having ever had oral, vaginal or anal sex, being a virgin, type of partner relationship they were in (none/other), and having a history of STI. We first ran a bivariate analysis and all significant variables (p<.05) were included in a logistic regression using the GYN group as the reference category. Results are expressed as odds ratios (OR) with [95% confidence intervals].