Majority of men do not visit ophthalmologist for preventative reasons at all.
Majority of women never self-examine mammary gland.
IPM Research was interested in studing issues related to disease prevention in Georgia. A survey was conducted and 400 respondents participated in it.
In the scope of the survey, it was revealed that half of the respondents visit doctor for preventative reasons several times or at least once a year.
Respondents have preventative visits to personal doctor most often (52.7%). Among narrow specialty doctor the gynecologist is on the first place (25.8%), with laboratorian (17.2%) and endocrinologist (14%) following, while visits to cardiologist (9.7%), oncologist (8.6%) and ophthalmologist (2.2%) being quite rare.
When we analyzed these data by gender, it turned out that men visit family doctor, laboratory assistant and cardiologist more often than women. Situation is opposite with endocrinologist, whom women visit much more frequently. It also turned out that men do not visit
ophthalmologist for preventative reasons at all.
One of the most common diseases in women in terms of mortality is breast cancer, which makes its prevention more important. But it turned out that among female respondents who visit doctors for preventative reasons, only 13,1% visits oncologist.
According to popular opinion, one of the ways to discover breast cancer in early stages is to self-examine the mammary gland. Despite self- examination not being proven as an effective screening method, it’s considered that practicing it makes women take more responsibilities for their health.
Organizations that recommend self-examining mammary gland (e.g. National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) is among them), have noted that self-examination procedure should be conducted regularly, once a month.
According to the information we got from the survey, majority of surveyed women (65%) never uses this method. 15.4% of women self-examine mammary gland once a month and 20% conducts this procedure irregularly.