A Trial to Maximize the Accuracy of Military Womens Genitourinary Self-Diagnoses

Abstract

Purpose: We evaluated the type and intensity of training that is required for military women to make accurate self-diagnosis and self-treatment decisions with the WMSD Kit (copyright) . Design: A randomized, two-factor, controlled trial design was used to compare women s accuracy rates among six levels of training, ranging from simplest (videotape) to most intensive (videotape + psychomotor skill training + cognitive rehearsal training). Methods: The Kit included commercial, point-of-care diagnostic devices and the WMSD Decision-Making Guide(copyright) . To determine their self-diagnoses and self-treatment decisions, women analyzed standardized non-infectious specimens that yielded positive and negative diagnostic results. Sample: The volunteer participants included Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine women (N=265) from three military installations, ages 18-58 years. Analysis: Comparison of accuracy rates among the six types of training sessions were determined by a 2-factor analysis of variance at alpha=0.05. Self-treatment accuracy, commission error, and omission error rates for each of the 7 potential self-diagnosis and self-treatment decisions were calculated from 2x2 contingency tables. Findings: Women s overall self-diagnosis and self-treatment accuracy was 80.7%, which exceeds the minimum accuracy criterion of more or equal to 75%.Overall treatment commission errors were 10%, and omission errors were 9.9%, which meet the maximum error criteria of less or equal to 10% and less or equal to 15% respectively. Six of the 7 potential diagnosis and treatment options met these criteria. Vaginal yeast diagnoses were least accurate (67.4%), in part, due to faulty test indicators on the diagnostic devices. Implications for Military Nursing: The WMSD Kit shows great promise for improving military women s health during deployment. This study shows that pre-deployment training for accurate use of the Kit requires only a 23-minute videotape.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 08, 2013
Accession Number
ADA609895

Entities

People

  • Nancy A. Ryan-wenger

Organizations

  • Ohio State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Air Force
  • Analysis Of Variance
  • Deployment
  • Education
  • Factor Analysis
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Indicators
  • Intensity
  • Knowledge Management
  • Military Training
  • Point-Of-Care Diagnostic Testing
  • Self Treatment
  • Task Forces
  • Training
  • Women'S Health

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
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