The characterization of patients with premature ovarian failure, endometriosis, and polycystic ovary syndrome in women attending comprehensive health centers in Urmia, Iran

Background Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), Premature Ovarian Failure (POF)(menopause before age 40), and Endometriosis (EMs) are major challenges; early detection is vital for effective management, improved outcomes, and sustained health support for women. We aimed to characterize patients with POF, EMs, and PCOS in women attending comprehensive health centers in Urmia, Iran.

This health center-based study involved 373 women. Medical findings obtained from transvaginal sonography, along with clinical features, signs, symptoms, and biochemical analyses were employed to characterize the women with PCOS, POF, and EMs.

The frequency of PCOS, POF, and EMs in the tested population were 17.69%, 0.8%, and 3.5%, respectively. Notable differences were identified among women with PCOS compared to healthy individuals regarding alcohol consumption, the place of residence, menstrual cramps, scale of dysmenorrhea-related pain, menstrual cycle, feeling of an abdominal mass, menstrual back pain, abortion, constipation, amenorrhea, hypomenorrhea, oligomenorrhea, ovarian cyst, abnormal pap smear, vaginal infection, diabetes, hormone therapy, primary infertility, acanthosis, acne, hirsutism, and alopecia. Severe dysmenorrhea-related pain and the sensation of an abdominal mass are key characteristics for effectively screening women with POF. Informative clinical characteristics for EMs include dysmenorrhea, severe dysmenorrhea-related pain, heavy menstrual bleeding, abdominal mass feeling, chronic pelvic discomfort, menstrual back pain, oligomenorrhea, ovarian cysts, primary infertility, acanthosis, and acne.

The majority of women diagnosed with PCOS lived in rural areas. Healthcare systems should place a high priority on women’s health in rural regions, where scarce resources and accessibility issues frequently undermine well-being. It is crucial to emphasize early detection, reproductive health, mental wellness, and social support. Enhancing these services not only improves the quality of life for women but also fortifies community resilience and guarantees fair health opportunities for all rural inhabitants, both now and for future generations to prosper. Similar content being viewed by others Abbreviations - PCOS: - Polycystic Ovary Syndrome - POF: - Premature Ovarian Failure - EMs: - Endometriosis - BMI: - Body Mass Index - AMH: - Anti-Müllerian Hormone - FSH: - Follicle Stimulating Hormone - SD: - Standard Deviation - DHEAS: - Dehydroepiandrosterone-Sulphate - LH: - Luteinizing Hormone - HDL: - High-Density Lipoprotein - LDL: - Low-Density Lipoprotein - WC: - Waist Circumference - SBP: - Systolic Blood Pressure - DBP: - Diastolic Blood Pressure - PRL: - Prolactin - 17α-OHP: - 17α-Hydroxyprogesterone - HDL: - High-Density Lipoprotein - LDL: - Low-Density Lipoprotein - TSH: - Thyroid Stimulating Hormone - WHR: - Waist-Hip Ratio

We would like to thank the esteemed Vice Chancellor for Research and technology of Urmia University of Medical Sciences. Funding This research was funded by Urmia University of Medical Sciences (Grant No: 3350). Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the protocol was approved by Ethics committee of Urmia University of Medical Sciences (IR.UMSU.REC.1402.281). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study (or their parents or legal guardians). Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary Information Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. About this article Cite this article Fathi, B., Ghasemnejad-Berenji, H., Hashemi, S.S. et al. The characterization of patients with premature ovarian failure, endometriosis, and polycystic ovary syndrome in women attending comprehensive health centers in Urmia, Iran. BMC Women's Health (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-026-04368-4 Received: Accepted: Published: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-026-04368-4