Pelvic inflammatory disease: incidence and trends in private practice.

Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is the result of gonorrhea that causes the most suffering expense and death. The numbers trends and demographic traits of women that use private doctors are analyzed here. The data used in these studies was obtained from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Disease and Therapeutic Index. The Division of Venereal Disease Control surveys and gets data on gonorrhea reported by each state. This data was used in conjunction with the other data to relate trends in PID to those of gonorrhea. It was found that PID and gonorrhea have different trends that are related to age. The majority of doctor consultations for PID is in the 15-34 age group; for gonorrhea doctor and public clinic visits fall mostly in the 15-24 age area. While visits for PID dropped 59% for non-white women and 36% for white women the non-white have twice the PID rate. Of the 1 and 3/4 million doctor visits each year 8/10 are for 1st time occurrence and most are acute cases. This data does not include emergency room cases and most of those would probably be severe. The reason for the non-white females having the highest PID and gonorrhea rate is due to delayed care or the unavailability of treatment facilities. A national program to find and treat 8-9 million women was begun in 1972. This data shows a decrease in reported cases of gonorrhea and PID among women.